


Eihwaz

by jadedace



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Author Doesn't Know Anything About Norway, Drama, Flashbacks, FrostIron - Freeform, Frostiron Bang 2015, Lots of Actual Burns, M/M, Sharing a Body, Slow Burn, Snark, Snarky Loki, Snarky Tony, irresponsible stick shift driving, not nearly enough Star Wars references, way too many Pink Floyd references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-13
Packaged: 2018-05-01 08:56:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 54,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5199881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadedace/pseuds/jadedace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle of New York, Loki was sentenced to be executed by an Aesir trial. What the god didn't expect was to wake up the morning after his private beheading in the body of a recent adversary, on a realm he had only just left...with the other person still very much alive and kicking inside. Tony is not too happy about his new headmate, and Loki is hardly thrilled over his new living arrangements. But with a new threat from the Mad Titan on Midgard's horizon, it's up to the two of them to keep the Tesseract out of hands that mean to misuse it's power.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, a big shout-out to my fabulous artist rosaeldi. Her art is amazing and you should all go admire it [here](http://rosaeldi.tumblr.com/post/133218808754). /)^3^(\
> 
> I also want to thank my beta readers David and Anna, for giving me feedback, pushing me to finish this story when the writer's block was overwhelming, and for putting up with my constant complaining and foot dragging. Y'all are both gifts. 
> 
> And finally, I would like to thank God and also Jesus for allowing me to finish my first fic over 5k words in nine years. It is truly a Christmas miracle that this was ever finished.

It was an abnormally bright day in the Realm Eternal. Every spire and facade gleamed in the brilliant sunlight, and the wispy clouds that usually scuttled across the sky were nowhere in sight. Birds danced on soft air currents, people milled about in Asgard’s busy markets, chatting amicably, and even the bards seemed to play a lighter tune than usual. The whole realm was in good spirits, it appeared. It was as if every living thing knew that today was the day that Loki died.

While the Realm outside danced, the disgraced prince sat slumped against the grimy wall of Asgard’s temporary prisoner holding chamber, chains piled loosely around his ankles, the only light coming from a few slats in the mortar of the wall. A puddle of something dark and wet, fed by an equally suspicious drip from the rafters, lapped at his bare and bloodied feet. This was a far cry from the relatively luxurious prison cell in which he’d been kept while awaiting trial, but those who made it to the holding chambers were never there for long. What need was there for comfort if it only housed the condemned?

The trial for the Battle of Midgard had gone just about as well as Loki could have hoped. A distant All Father, staring down at his adopted son with all the affection a man might feel for the arrow speared through his leg, spoke words without the slightest trace of emotion. There were no talks of second chances, no promises of a triumphant return, none of the privileges given to Asgard’s golden prince after he’d declared war on a realm. There was only a swift and merciless verdict.

Execution wasn’t the outcome Loki had desired, but he couldn’t say he was surprised. In fact, it was almost a relief. Odin’s final ruling brought a swift end to a thousand-year long conflict between the father and son, in which Odin neither praised nor scolded, neither loved nor hated, his Jotunn child. It was a wiping away of the grey that had been Loki’s entire life. Yes, his own father may have signed his death warrant, but at least he finally knew, once and for all, what Odin thought of him. What Odin had always thought of him. There was no grey this time. Loki was less than his brother, less than the citizens of Asgard, less than even the bilgesnipe who roamed Asgard’s forests. In Odin’s eyes, Loki had been a political pawn and nothing more. 

Now, as he waited to die, he tried to summon his hate, his bitterness, his vitriol, some strong feeling that would urge him to action, that would lead to his own self-preservation. But in this dark pit, the lowest of lows, he found none. His childhood home didn’t want him. His ancestral home despised him. And out there among the stars, a mad beast with a thirst for revenge waited to devour the God of Mischief should he stray from Asgard’s protection. No, this execution was the logical conclusion to the liar’s story. All he could do now was wait. 

As he sat there, lost in thought, resigned to his death, the heavy iron door to the cell creaked open. A sliver of golden light spilled in, admitting a delicate but sure pair of feet. Loki knew without looking who his visitor was. 

“Have I made you proud, Mother?” he croaked, voice hoarse from disuse. He had not spoken a word since his capture on Midgard—not to his guards, not in defense at his own trial, not even to mock his brother (who seemed to be the only one distraught by the ruling). Frigga crossed the filthy stones without making a sound, coming to rest beside her youngest son. He couldn’t see anything but her silhouette in this poor lighting, but he could picture the melancholy expression on her face. She gathered her skirts in one hand and slid down the wall beside him, so their shoulders touched. 

“I would tell you not to make things worse, but it seems the worst has happened,” she answered quietly. Loki laughed humorlessly. 

“You could change his mind if you wished,” the Jotunn murmured. “I know you could.”

Of this whole ordeal, Frigga’s silence was perhaps the most upsetting thing to Loki. She had been the one to raise him, to teach him her craft, to comfort him when he was injured and to encourage him to get back up again. Where Odin had been indifferent, Frigga had been loving. Where Odin had ignored, Frigga had lavished attention. Her silent agreement to Loki’s death was a betrayal, and it sat like a knife between his ribs. 

There was a pause before Frigga answered, in which she withdrew a glowing stone from a pocket in her skirt. Its viridian light was subdued, pulsing gently in the dim chamber, but Loki knew it well. He didn’t have to see much to know the rune he would find inscribed on its face. Frigga turned the stone over in her slim fingers, caressing its worn surface. 

“The All Father does what he believes is best for Asgard. I may offer insight, but his is the final decision.” She held the runestone up to catch the sparse beams of light in the chamber. The facets of the rune glimmered, a single vertical line with two angled lines intersecting at each end. Eihwaz. “Do you remember this?”

“Yes,” Loki said simply, not in the mood for a nostalgia trip. Of course he remembered it. He’d carried it everywhere with him as a child, in a hidden pocket in the breast of his tunic. It was the first object he’d ever enchanted, and he’d thought of it as a good luck charm. The boy had spent weeks in the palace’s library surrounded by grimoires and Elven texts, trying unsuccessfully to get the damn runestone to shine. In the end, after multiple fires from miscast enchantments, the spell stuck. It was poorly crafted and gave off more of a sickly glow, rather than the bright light he’d been aiming for. By all accounts it was a failure, but young Loki had carried that stone around for the longest time. 

“You wanted to impress me, so you learned the spell and cast it all by yourself,” Frigga sighed fondly. Loki’s lip twitched into a ghost of smile. “You were so proud.”

“And Thor was so jealous. He wanted to know why _he_ couldn’t make rocks glow,” Loki added. In reality, Loki had been more proud of upsetting his brother than actually enchanting the runestone. But the way Frigga had smiled when he presented her with the gift still filled him with warmth.

Ah, but what good it did him now. Thor walked free and Loki was doomed to die. The smile thinned into pursed lips, and Loki’s hands balled into fists at his sides. “Mother, why did you bring me this?”

Frigga reached out to put a hand on his shoulder, but Loki jerked away. The knife in his chest twisted deeper; her presence felt false. She had not fought on his behalf in his farce of a trial, and now she sat in the proverbial mercy seat at his side to ease her guilt. The bitterness Loki couldn’t direct at Odin rose like bile in his throat. 

“This rock went everywhere with you, once,” Frigga continued, seemingly unfazed by his reaction. “It brought you luck.”

Loki scoffed. “And you think luck will save me now?”

Frigga turned to him then, and even through the dimness Loki could feel the intensity of her stare. 

“You’ve always been smart, Loki. You’ve done things on your own, and it's gotten you into trouble more times than I can count. But I need you to do one last thing.”

Outside, Loki could hear the armored footsteps of the guards. His time grew short. In an instant, Frigga had snatched up his hands and pressed the runestone into his palm. 

“One last thing for me, Loki. And you can't do it on your own.”

The doors opened, revealing the silhouetted forms of the Einherjar. It was time. 

Frigga stood, pulling Loki with her, their hands still clasped around the stone. In the light, Loki could clearly see the fervor in his mother’s eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, to ask her what the Hel she was talking about, but she shushed him.  

“Carry this stone, and take my last piece of advice: don't do this on your own."

He wanted to ask her, _What? What am I not to do on my own? Die?_ but the guards moved to pull him away. Frigga dropped her hands, leaving the stone with Loki, who managed to discreetly tuck it in the waistband of his pants. Only when they steered him into the prison proper did Loki’s eyes leave hers.

The corridor that led outside seemed longer than Loki remembered. On either side of him, prisoners in gilded cages sneered and laughed. He knew of the crimes they’d committed, the murdering of diplomats and the desecration of entire villages across the realms. Far more heinous crimes than those the beast had bid him to carry out, but these inmates were lucky enough to not be the monstrous bastard son of the All Father. 

Ages seemed to pass before he was led, shackles and all, into the sun. The courtyard was small, as the King of Asgard prided himself on his mercy and executions were a rarity. Only a small few were in attendance: Heimdall, no doubt there to make sure Loki didn’t escape with trickery; the executioner, carrying an axe that any berserker would have killed to wield; and the All Father himself. Together, with his four-guard escort, there were eight of them in the spacious yard. 

Loki had to wonder if Thor had been invited. Part of him wished Thor was actually there. 

He was pushed to his knees at the feet of the executioner and hit the ground with a jarring thud. The vibrations traveled through his legs, up his torso, and all of sudden Loki couldn’t hear a thing. Strange that the simple act of falling to the ground had disoriented him so. He blinked hard against the light (he’d never noticed just how bright it was), and though he could make out the moving of the All Father’s lips above him, he didn’t hear anything. 

Had they drugged him? Was this their idea of a small mercy? His body was going numb now, and he couldn’t even mock Odin for his cowardice, as his tongue had, apparently, turned to lead in his mouth. The only thing that seemed real in this whole ordeal was the runestone, warm and solid against his leg. 

The executioner forced Loki’s head onto the chopping block, but there was no need for force. Loki’s body was no longer under his control, the ringing in his ears now deafening. The runestone seemed to vibrate under his waistband and he focused on it, tried to reach for it, tried to ground himself before he was gone forever… 

And the next thing he knew, Loki was falling. It was dangling off the end of the Bifrost all over again, looking up at a wretched Thor and a stone-faced Odin, it was feeling the gentle nothingness of the Void swallowing him whole, it was tumbling down down down until he wasn’t sure if he was falling or floating. It was feeling nothing and feeling everything all at once.

Asgard’s light faded to blackness, the ringing became a roar that became silence, and Loki’s fall finally ended in a crash.

 

 

 


	2. Loki and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very-Bad Situation

Despite Frigga’s cryptic words, Loki had not expected to wake up in the living world. Valhalla was certainly not where he was destined, but there were other realms that guarded the dead. Helheim was a large place. Loki had expected a pit of souls, a forest of eternal suffering, or perhaps Surtur’s domain, not the living world. 

But there was no denying that he was alive.  

There was the headache, for one. It felt as though someone had strapped his head in a metal vice and was squeezing his temples with all they had. Loki let out an involuntary moan and leaned forward, letting his head fall into his hands. Everything was so sharp and clear, the headache forcing his brain to process sights and sounds at a much higher rate. The light, muted by tinted windows, was still blinding, the low hum of tires on asphalt a thunderous roar. It was the smells that were overwhelming, though: stale smoke, last night’s ale, and an offensive amount of cologne that made Loki’s stomach twist. And through the pain, the god was able to put the pieces together. 

Not only was he alive, but he was on Midgard. 

“How’s that hangover treating you, buddy?” a strange (but also strangely familiar) voice asked cheerfully. This was followed by a strong, much-unappreciated clap on the shoulder. The force of it made Loki’s stomach lurch in an unpleasant way. 

_Man, fuck this._

Loki froze, somehow managing to hold down his last meal a little longer. That thought wasn’t his. 

_What the hell?_

That thought also did not belong to him, and was accompanied by a surge of wordless panic. What the hell, indeed. 

“Hey, Tony, still with me?” the strange-familiar voice spoke again, and this time Loki forced his eyes open (against the glaring light that stabbed his retinas like thrown daggers) and came face to face with a dark-skinned man, who eyed him with a mixture of amusement and mild concern. Very mild concern. In fact, the look was mostly amusement with very little concern. 

_I know this man_ , Loki thought, but couldn’t place it. There were so many things happening right now, and Loki’s tortured brain was in no shape to fully process this.

_Say something you idiot, say something say something saysomethingsaysomething…_

Loki’s not-thoughts continued their panic, and Loki became aware of his mouth moving without his consent. He snapped it shut, only to realize that no, he couldn’t hold his last meal after all, and doubled over as the contents of his stomach made a reappearance. This prompted the strange-familiar man to laugh at what Loki felt to be a highly inappropriate time. 

“Does my suffering amuse you?” he finally choked out, straightening up and wiping his mouth. 

“Man, I’m just thinking about the look on Pepper’s face when you show up to this meeting hungover.”

Before Loki even had a chance to digest what he’d just heard, the not-thoughts exploded again with a whole different kind of panic. 

_Shit the meeting, oh fuck Pepper’s going to kill me, shit shit shit—_

“Will you shut up?” Loki finally snapped aloud, resulting in an odd, slightly offended look from the other man. 

_Well you don’t have to shout,_  the voice, whose identity Loki was starting to suspect, chimed in indignantly.

The stranger, who wasn’t privy to the conversation raging inside Loki’s brain, raised his hands in mock defense. “This isn’t my fault, don’t take it out on me. It was your bright idea to hit the Strip. I tried to talk you out of it, remember?”

Loki really shouldn’t have remembered. He should have no recollection whatsoever. This man was a stranger, the car they were riding in was unfamiliar, the whole situation made no sense. But nonetheless, Loki remembered. 

** Las Vegas. A hotel done up in white and gold. A strawberry blonde woman handing him an electronic pad to sign, all the while saying “Don’t be late tomorrow.” A wistful look out of a penthouse window. A fateful phone call to one James “Rhodey” Rhodes, and a night that ended face-down in the back seat of a Rolls Royce.  **

The god felt nauseous again, and his headache grew more pronounced. The hangover really wasn’t helping this revelation, and the movement of the Rolls Royce wasn’t helping the hangover. 

“Stop the vehicle,” Loki choked out, cringing at the sound of a voice that wasn’t his. Beside him, Rhodey reached out a hand. 

“Look, Tony—“

“Stop the vehicle!” 

The driver had barely swung to the curb before Loki was tumbling out of the passenger side door, head swimming. Loki had never been drunk and hungover at the same time, and decided quickly that it was something he never wanted to be again. He staggered out onto the curb into the hot, dry morning. The sun was just starting to peek over the glistening facades of the Las Vegas Strip, and every door and window reflected it back into his face. 

_Get inside,_  the voice ordered, equally affected by the light, and Loki became aware of a phantom force that was trying to manipulate his limbs. The god was having none of that, clenching his hands to stay fully in control.

_Inside where?_  It was impossible to get his bearings when the light was so intense. Behind Loki, Rhodey was climbing out of the Rolls Royce, clearly more concerned than amused now. 

_It doesn’t matter!_  the voice shouted at him.  _Pick a door! There are hundreds of them._

Arms outstretched and feeling like a fool, Loki took four fumbling steps forward before his hands met a door handle. He pushed it open and was greeted with a blessed dimness that he could actually function in. The room was open, filled with cloth-covered tables and chairs. One of Las Vegas’s premier eateries no doubt.

“Hey, buddy, we’re not open yet—” a man in his late thirties, likely the maitre’d, started, but stopped at the look of death that was plastered on Loki’s face. 

“Bathroom?” the god gasped, and the maitre’d, forced to choose between kicking out a drunk patron and cleaning up the mess or showing said patron to the bathroom, took the latter option and pointed down the hall. Loki staggered in the bathroom's direction. 

As he neared the finished oak door of the restroom, Loki found himself dreading what he would see behind it. Suspicions were there, of course, but confirming them meant—what?

_It means you’re in possession of something that doesn’t belong to you,_  the voice said bitterly.  _And you better start looking for new living arrangements._

Loki ignored the voice that he refused to name, slipping into the restroom and finding himself unable to look into the mirror. 

In all honesty, it wasn’t just being cast into a mortal’s body that was the insult. It wasn’t the denial of an afterlife that would have, most likely, been incredibly unpleasant. It was Odin’s unfailing tendency to love with one hand and punish with the other. It was his unbridled contempt for Loki in public, but his soft words and merciful acts behind closed doors. It was the way that Odin never made a final decision on Loki’s part. Even the Jotunn’s execution hadn’t been final—after all, here he was, wasn’t he? There was still the grey area, the small things that made a tiny part of Loki wonder if his adopted father really did care. And it was the knowledge that, when push would eventually came to shove, Odin would send those mixed signals again, raise those feeble hopes in his lesser son, only to throw them back in Loki’s face. It was the denial of closure, and the refusal to let Loki move on.

The god’s anger was back, and this time, outside of his dank cell, it was easy to fan to flames. Hands that were not his hands balled into fists, and a heart that wasn’t his heart began racing in his chest. A strong desire to see the old man beaten and bloody at his feet was almost overwhelming. And Loki, steeled by anger, finally looked up. 

What he saw, though expected, still came as a shock. Disheveled brown hair stuck out at odd angles, courtesy of the remnants of last night’s styling gel. A normally-manicured beard had grown scruffy in the night, darkening his face and softening a rock-hard jawline. A wrinkled black shirt was complemented by a wrinkled red and gold tie, and as morning after looks went, Tony Stark managed to look more refined than most. Only one thing was out of place, only one piece didn’t fit with the puzzle Loki had first met at Stark Tower. The expressive brown eyes, the ones that had once eyed him smugly from behind a wet bar, now glowed an almost iridescent green. 

_You bastard_ , Tony snapped in Loki’s head. Loki lifted a hand, ran it through the rat’s nest of hair, watching as the reflection that wasn’t his followed suit.  _I want to to know who you are, and then I want you to get the hell out._

Loki licked his lips. In the mirror, the green eyes that didn’t belong in Tony’s body softened with a hint of defeat.  _That might not be possible._

_Why the hell not?_  Tony said. And Loki had to laugh at the situation, at the irony the All Father must have planned all along. Just enough freedom to keep Loki out of Asgard’s hair, just enough restrictions to make it still feel like a prison. And still no closure.

_Because,_  the god said,  _as far as anyone knows, I’m already dead._

There was a beat as Tony collected his thoughts.  _What the_ fuck _does that mean?_

_It means,_  Loki answered, leaning forward to more closely inspect his new reflection,  _that I’ve got no body left to go back to._

_So, what, you pulled a move from a mediocre Steve Martin comedy and decided to steal someone else’s?_

Tony’s wording thoroughly confused the god.  _What? No. I didn’t choose this. Gods, Stark, do you really not know who I am?_

Another pause, this one slightly indignant.  _Should I?_

The mortal’s reflection smiled. It was humorless and didn’t reach those viridian eyes.  _Shall I spell it out for you? Perhaps a monument built to the skies with my name plastered in lights. That might jog your memory._

_Son of a bitch._ Tony said, finally working it out. And then, as if he was trying to convinced himself that it wasn’t true— _Loki._

_In the flesh. Or, more accurately, in your flesh._

_Thor said you were executed._

_That’s what he thinks. He, and anyone who ever knew me._

_Then this is your game plan. Infiltrate the Avengers by infiltrating my body? Are you looking for revenge?_

Loki tsked and stepped back from the mirror, straightening his tie as he went.  _You make it sound so dirty, Stark. You also make it sound like I give an iota about Midgard or your silly team. This was not my choice._

_Right. You were axed and whatever was left of you just happened to find its way to my body. Very plausible._  The sarcasm in Stark’s voice was almost palpable. 

_Believe what you will. But we share a body now, Stark, It’s very difficult to lie to you._ Loki, who was fully capable of keeping wandering minds out of places they shouldn’t be, allowed Tony a moment to scour his most recent memories--the cell, the execution, his mother's last visit (sans dialogue; Loki still wasn't sure what it meant and didn't need any speculations from his headmate). It forced the inventor to accept what the god had been telling him—that Loki hadn’t been responsible for their current situation, that he quite honestly had no way out, and that he felt as good about the whole predicament as Stark did. 

_So,_  the man said at last, still bitter but resigned to the situation,  _what do we do?_

The green eyes in the mirror blinked slowly. For the first time in his life, Loki did not have an answer.


	3. Nuclear Tensions

Rhodey caught up to them in the bathroom a minute later, probably from covering Loki’s drunk ass with the maitre’d outside. 

“Hey, man, talk to me,” the man said, coming to stand behind Loki’s shoulder. The god immediately looked down, hiding his unnaturally green eyes from sight. For whatever reason, Rhodey hadn't noticed them before--perhaps he had not had a good look, what with the dim, mildly chaotic ride in the Rolls Royce. In decent light, however, they could pose a problem. 

“I’m fine. Probably just…” Loki quickly rifled through Tony’s limited memories of the night before, looking for a suitable lie. A bottle of red liquor sitting half-empty on an oak table came to mind. “…bad scotch.”

The inventor was personally offended by the untruth. _That was a bottle of 50 year old Macallan single malt scotch whiskey._

_And?_

_And it was aged to fucking perfection, thank you very much._

Loki rolled his eyes. _And if I remember correctly, it tasted awful._

_You_ don't _remember,_ Tony snapped back. Rhodey, meanwhile, wore the beginnings of a smirk. 

“Never thought I’d live to see you unable to hold your alcohol.”

“Haha,” Loki grumbled, reaching into his pants pocket to withdraw a pair of sunglasses Tony's memories told him were there. He slipped them on and straightened up, eyeing himself in the mirror. They hid his green eyes splendidly—and also managed to dim the light considerably, which his hungover mind thanked him for. 

"I'll get you some aspirin in the car, but we've got to get going. You're already late."

_Late for what?_

_The meeting!_ Stark groaned, more as a realization than a reminder to the body snatching god. Loki cursed. Of course. The business of Midgardians was about as interesting to him as watching paint dry; the meeting was a waste of time that could be spent finding a solution to Tony and Loki's respective problems. Thankfully, from what Loki gleaned from Tony's memories, it wasn't terribly out of character for him to electively abstain from such meetings

"Actually," Loki said, "I am pretty--" his mind searched for the right Midgardian term, "--wrecked. I think I'll go sleep it all off back at the room." Rhodey's humorous expression dropped immediately to one of exasperation. _He was expecting this._ Tony supplied, relieved to know that Loki really could not care less about the Secret Avengers Business. _Ten bucks says Pepper made him promise to get me to the meeting on time._

"The hell you are," Rhodey shot back. "You have already forced everyone to reschedule this debrief three times because you spent two and a half weeks locked up in your godforsaken lab. You are not pulling this hooky shit again, Tony."

"Did Pepper put you up to this?" 

"Why the hell does that matter?" Rhodey demanded.

_That's a yes._

"Look, Tony. You are going to this debrief if I have to tie you up and drag you there myself."

_He must be joking._

_I really doubt that..._ Tony responded. Memories of a fight on Stark's birthday the year before came to mind--the ending was unpleasant. Loki paid it little heed and decided to call the man's bluff.

"Sure you will. I'll see you back at the room." The god turned to leave the bathroom, and suddenly found himself pressed up against the tile wall, arm wrenched behind his back.

"Did you think I was joking?" Rhodey asked. The hint of humor was back again. He was _enjoying_ this. Any struggling to get free was in vain; this mortal body was so _weak_.

_Normally I let the suit do the work for me._

_Well then, I am immensely grateful that it is at our immediate disposal._

_Sarcasm will get you nowhere._

_Neither will your fleshy, under-muscled physique._

_Try using your mouth, then, genius. That always gets you places._

Despite Tony's obvious facetiousness, Loki was not called Silvertongue for nothing. 

"Look, man, I'm really not feeling up to dealing with Nick Fury and his band of merry men today," Loki tried as the man hauled him out into the hall. "What input could I even offer in this state?"

"Aspirin is a miracle drug. You'll be dominating the room like you always do soon enough," came the unsympathetic reply. 

_What was that, Silvertongue?_

_Silence, Stark._

There was very obviously no way out of the debrief. Loki had to wonder what made Stark put it off three times prior. _This is entirely your fault for not being reliable._

_Really? Because I was under the impression that the one at fault was the person who literally stole my body. Just work on fixing this problem while Fury rambles on and try not to retain anything you hear._

Loki rolled his eyes. _Believe me, I won't have to try._

After apologizing profusely to the maitre’d, Rhodey hailed them a cab (“The driver of the Rolls wasn’t too happy with your new addition to his backseat.”) and they were off, much to Loki's chagrin.

“Take these,” Rhodey said, offering Loki a handful of aspirin. “You can at least fake your sobriety.”

The god took them with a glare. Rhodey only shook his head in long-suffering bemusement. 

The drive was a long one, twisting through Las Vegas streets until they hit a dusty old road that wound straight out into the Nevada desert. Rhodey attempted to make conversation, but Loki opted for the silent treatment ( _What are you, five?_ came Tony's bitter commentary) and the car lapsed into silence (even the inventor's snarky comments faded after a while). The landscape outside the cab was flat and barren, save for the River Mountains rising distantly from the horizon. Again, Loki was struck with that feeling of strange-but-familiar, and a memory that wasn't his sprang to the front of his mind.

A **fghanistan. Rugged mountains on either side of a dirt and gravel road. Dry grey brush under military-grade tires. Back in Black on a portable stereo. Scotch on the rocks. Gang signs and cheap cameras. Yelling. Explosions. Gun fire. Blood. Lots of blood. Screaming. Stark Industries. Pain. More blood. So much pain—**

The memory ended abruptly as Tony, who had been idly daydreaming moments before, came to life and snatched it away. He bundled it up tight, stuffing it deep, deep, deep in the recesses of their shared mind. Loki was startled out of the trance-like state the monotonous desert road had lured him into. 

_What in the Realms was that?_ For some reason, the memory disturbed him. Tony's emotions, not just his memories, seemed to be bleeding into Loki's. 

_Nothing,_ Tony snapped back, guarding the wayward memory like a starving lion guards a fresh kill. Loki wasn’t intrigued enough to press further. 

They drove for an hour without incident before reaching a fence seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Armed guards waved them through, and the god recognized the bird of prey logo emblazoned on their jackets. After ten more minutes of driving, the car pulled to a stop at a nondescript grey cube of a building. It bore tinted windows and a lone entrance of double doors. Loki stepped out of the cab into a shocking heat that immediately stole his breath.

Rhodey leaned over the back seat to close the cab door. “And this is my stop.”

“You're not coming in?" 

The man grinned and offered a shrug. "Avengers only, remember? My job was just to get you here. And besides, there's a breakfast buffet at Caesar's Palace calling my name."

As if in response, Loki's stomach growled loudly; Tony hadn't eaten since lunch the previous day. Rhodey's grin widened. "Catch you later, Tony." He closed the door and the cab was gone, leaving the god in a cloud of dust. Loki seethed, deciding then that he rather detested Tony's friend. He had half a mind to simply walk back to civilization and miss the meeting a fourth time. 

_That would be a stupid idea even by your standards, Gandalf._

_I said half a mind, Stark. Probably your half. Though this mortal body wouldn't last five minutes in a desert._

For some reason, that comment rubbed Tony the wrong way. _This mortal body kicked your ass the last time we met, it can handle a desert just fine. Just go in there and get this debrief over with so we can get you the hell out of my body._

Loki didn't argue. 

It was strange how little security there was outside the SHIELD outpost. Other than the guards that had waved them through the fence, there appeared to be no one around. Perhaps they didn't see a need for extra security when they were so far out in the wilderness. 

The doors to the building were protected by a thumb print scanner, and they swung soundlessly open to admit Loki into a low-ceilinged reception area. A young man sporting a Bluetooth earpiece looked up from a spotless desk. 

"They're waiting for you inside, Mr Stark," the man said, pointing to a windowless door to his left. With an irritated shake of his head, Loki entered. 

“Nice of Mr Stark to finally join us,” Fury drawled as the door swung shut behind the god. 

The room they were in was dark and utilitarian; no windows, just paneled lights in the ceiling that cast everything in a harsh glow. A table took up the whole center of the room, lined with black plastic chairs. Nick Fury stood at its head, facing the doorway. A large screen sat dormant just above his head. Gathered around the table were the rest of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes—Barton and Romanov in their usual SHIELD uniforms, arms crossed and wearing identical expressions of mild irritation; Dr Banner in a mussed olive button down, trying to be as small as possible; Captain Rogers in a grey t-shirt that looked far too tight, reclining in his plastic chair and not looking the least bit surprised by Iron Man’s tardiness. The only one missing from the room was Thor. 

“Sorry I’m late, I got hung up,” Loki said smoothly as he took the seat clearly meant for Iron Man. 

“Don’t you mean hungover?” Clint spoke from the corner. Natasha smirked.

"That's another word for it, yes."

Clint opened his mouth to reply, but Fury was clearly not in the mood to let this briefing drag. "Now that we're all here," the director of SHIELD said, cutting off the archer before he could respond, "perhaps we could finish business that should have been taken care of a month ago."

"I was wondering what was so important that it involved me finding time to fly out to Las Vegas for a simple debrief."

"The important thing, Stark, is this." Fury stepped aside, and the monitor above his head came to life. It showed a live video feed of what appeared to be a small oil rig in the middle of the desert. Workers in SHIELD jumpsuits scuttled around like ants, busying themselves around the central tower that housed--

_The Tesseract._

The innocuous-looking cube was little more than a bright speck on the screen, but it was easily recognizable to everyone in the room. The light mood from moments before darkened immediately, replaced by stunned silence.

"What is that still doing here?" Steve was the first to break the quiet. It wasn't just the Avengers who were hit with a feeling of deep unrest. Loki felt his stomach start to churn just staring at the cube.

** Space. The Void. Curled up on the ground, pressing bloodied hands to ears. A whisper that chilled to the bone, "--the Liesmith lies even to himself--" **

"That," Fury said, staring at the screen with his arms behind his back, "was returned to us by our very own God of Thunder. He's currently indisposed at the moment--overseeing this little project so that nothing goes horribly wrong--but he assures me that Asgard's king believes Earth to be the safest place to keep it."

** "--thinking himself the stuff of gods." Dark rocks turned crimson with spilled humor. A scepter pressed to the back of his neck. Cold, so cold.  **

Tony was concerned by the memories; the transfer of emotions went two ways. _When I said don't pay attention, this isn't what I had in mind._

"That Cube has done nothing but fuel war and death since it was uncovered," the captain argued. 

"I couldn't agree more, Cap," Fury said, "which is why we're burying it. No more weapons, no more tampering. It can rot in this desert for all I care." Onscreen, the Tesseract hummed.

**_"_ I bring you respite from your pain. I bring you freedom from slavery of the mind--" **

"So why call us all together if we're just going to bury it?" It was Natasha who spoke this time. 

"No one outside of this room, sans Thor, knows what the Tesseract is or why we're disposing of it. I'd have preferred no one knowing, but your combined experience dealing with this pain in the ass is invaluable. Asgard won't take it back and if the worst case scenario should happen--again--we need someone to call."

** "--and the responsibilities you could never hope to fulfill. Your freedom is the greatest lie you've ever told, and you've told it to yourself." **

Loki was falling all over again. It was being kicked to the ground time after time, staring up at an unforgiving face that promised Death and never delivered. It was control slipping through broken fingers, spiraling into helplessness. It was the Tesseract, always there, yet always out of reach. It was an omnipresent humming at the base of his neck, through his jaw, so slight but so deadly. It was fear and powerlessness and pain and all manner of emotions that Loki had been running from since the beginning.

** "Once you accept that--" the beast continued, leaned close. **

"Is that all we are to you, Fury? Your contingency plan?" Bruce broke his silence at last, giving Fury an accusatory glare.

"I'm more interested in knowing why Asgard thinks Earth is the safest place, given our track record," Steve continued in an attempt to keep the meeting on track. 

"Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me..." Clint murmured, nudging Nat in the side with a sideways smile. Their laughter grated on the god. It was alien, out of place.

_Earth to Loki!_ Tony all but shouted in their mind. The Tesseract danced on screen.

** Shaking hands and blood and pain. Clenched teeth and anger and helplessness. Conflict of the mind. "--you will know peace." **

And for Loki, the pieces clicked. 

"Odin is using Midgard as bait."

Now _that_ got the room's attention. All eyes were suddenly on the god in the mortal's body. Even Tony was silent. 

"Care to elaborate, Stark?" Fury asked. Loki licked his lips, leaned forward in his chair. 

"Asgard knows you--we--aren't prepared to deal with an extraterrestrial threat; it was a fluke the Chitauri were defeated the first time."

_Fluke? I almost_ died _._ Tony said, indignant. 

_But you didn't. It could have been worse. Far worse._

"More will come. There's always more willing to fight when power like the Tesseract is on the line, and the dear All Father doesn't want to bring that to Asgard. He's going to draw them out, leave the Tesseract all but unprotected, dangle the lure in front of his enemies. And when they bite, he'll send his celestial armies in, riding on white horses to save the day. Whether or not there will be anything left of Midgard when the time comes is anyone's guess."

Loki was breathing hard by the time he finished, overcome by blinding rage for the second time that day. The beast would come after the Tesseract with a passion, enraged by his godling's loss. Odin knew that. And Odin also knew how the beast would want revenge for the loss. Rather than protect his own, rather than safeguard the realms, the All Father had thrown Midgard on the proverbial chopping block. The beast would come for the Tesseract, and in the process, he would find Loki. 

** "And you will know peace."  **

_Well, shit._

There was a beat of silence as the room gathered their thoughts. 

"That seems a little far-fetched, Stark," Natasha said at last. "Thor is our ally. I can't imagine he'd let the All Father throw Earth under the bus."

Fury crossed his arms, chewing over Loki's words. "I'd like to believe that, but Thor wasn't too thrilled to be bringing the Cube back," he said in response to the Widow. "He was actually the one who suggested burying it." 

"And where exactly is it being buried?" Steve wanted to know. 

"Alamogordo. Near Trinity," Fury answered.

The name brought up images of a large pyramidal obelisk and green glass. 

"Our hope is that the low-levels of residual radiation will disguise the gamma rays the Cube gives off, so no one--terrestrial or otherwise--will come sniffing."

“Residual radiation?” Steve asked, looking puzzled. “Did something happen there?”

“My apologies, Captain Rogers. This was a couple years after your time,” Fury backtracked. “Trinity was the site of the first above-ground detonation of a nuclear device by the US military. Seventy years later it’s no longer dangerously radioactive, but there’s just enough left to serve our purpose.”

_It's not going to work_ , Tony, to Loki's great surprise, agreed. _I've seen what the other side is capable of._

A memory, one eerily similar to Loki's own, came to mind. 

** The Void. Manhattan below. Chitauri army above, swarming like locust above the portal. Great leviathans that dwarfed the stars, armed with teeth of vibranium and scales that swallowed light. Space stations as big as moons stretching into the nebulae beyond. Weapons of a magnitude he couldn't begin to comprehend. Tendrils of something dark, seeping into the back of his mind, calling him down. Darkness. **

_No,_ the god affirmed, _they will come regardless._

"Trinity will not protect it," Loki said aloud, hand tapping nervously on the table top."There is no cloaking device on this Earth that can keep what's out there away."

“We’ve thought of every alternative, Stark,” Fury assured him. “The best we can do for now is keep it hidden. We’ll figure out what to do once it’s safely underground.”

“That’s not _good enough,_ ” the god hissed, his voice slowly rising. “We don’t have time to wait around for the next threat to come calling.”

“That’s why you are here,” Fury said, fixing his one good eye on the god, voice raised to match Loki’s. “We are going to come up with a defensive plan to make sure that we are ready for the next hostile force to show up. But until then, we bury the Cube.”

“The only solution is getting that Cube as far away from Earth as possible.”

“Tony, I agree with you,” Steve said from across the table, “but what do you want us to do? Launch it into space? We may as well gift wrap the Tesseract for this new threat.” 

Neither Loki nor Tony knew the answer to that. Asgard was the only logical place for the Tesseract, with a military that was up to snuff when it came to massive intergalactic terrorists. But if Asgard refused the Cube, that left Midgard with two options: keep it, or dump it. Logically, they had to keep it. It was their only course of action.

_We’re trapped,_ Loki realized. 

_It sure looks that way,_ Tony agreed. Their heart began to race without Loki’s permission. Around them, the room seemed to shrink, the lights growing hotter and brighter. It didn’t seem like each breath could come fast enough. 

“In lieu of another option,” Fury continued, “we have developed a program that will keep the Tesseract as discreet as possible. We don’t want round the clock guards--that’s bound to raise some eyebrows. Hopefully, with the Chitauri weaponry we salvaged from New York, it will give us just enough of an edge--”

“I told you,” Loki started again, “ _nothing_ we do will be enough to keep anyone away.”

"And _why_ do you think that?" There was exasperation in Fury’s voice, something challenging that threw Tony on the defensive. The thin walls both of them had built around their respective memories all but disintegrated. The indignation of a mortal mingled with the rage of a god, and the floodgates were opened.

"Because we've seen it!" Loki and Tony snarled together, all but leaping out of their chair. They slammed their fists on the plastic table top with a crack that startled the gathered Avengers. "We know what we're up against, and keeping the Tesseract here, on _Earth_ , is a death sentence. For _all_ of us." 

"Tony," Bruce began, his calm voice a stark contrast to the harsh tones, "no one is denying your experience, but perhaps you are--"

"Overreacting?" Neither of them knew which one was in control anymore. Their thoughts raced together along the same track, fueled by anger and an overwhelming undercurrent of fear. Fear of the Void, of the armies it hid, of the beast holding the reins. "Did you see what the Chitauri did to New York? Did you forget how easy it was for a hostile alien force to take remote control of the Tesseract? Did you forget that they sent an agent through it, into _your_ heavily fortified facility?" 

"Stark, you need to calm down--" a concerned Steve reached across the table, made to put his hand on their shoulder. They jerked violently away. The Avengers didn't know, didn't understand. They hadn't _seen_ it, they hadn't _felt_ it, they hadn't _knelt at its feet_ , soaked in their own blood. They didn't _know_. 

"Oh right, yeah, let's _calm down_. We're being thrown to the galactic wolves and you think now is the time for calm. Great, great. You see how that works out for you. There are better things to do than 'calming down' over a world-wide security threat." They pushed themselves away from the table and backed away, towards the door. "And you know what? Fine. Do it your way. See if the realm survives. I’m not a part of this anymore. So long and _thanks_ _for all the fish_."

"Stark..."

But they weren't listening. Still thinking in tandem, still hardly thinking at all, Tony and Loki threw open the door to the foyer. The man at the desk looked up, startled. 

"Call us a car." Without waiting for a confirmation from the secretary, they stormed outside to wait in the heat. The building walls continued to shrink, the lights growing brighter and hotter. It was hard to draw each breath. They needed sunlight, fresh air, _space_. 

One whiff of the desert air, of sage and dirt and dryness, and their tandem thoughts began to separate. Loki felt Tony seep out of his limbs, pushed back into the confines of their mind now that the heat of the moment had faded. The arid Nevada desert stretched before them, featureless and monotonous and mind-numbing. A balm on their shaken nerves. Neither spoke a word. 

Only seconds later, the door to the SHIELD building opened behind them. "Tony," a soft voice said. It was Bruce, calm as ever. Loki didn't turn away from the bland landscape. The other scientist came to stand beside him, looking from the horizon to Loki's face. "Tony, you know we're worried about you."

Tony didn't stir. Loki didn't talk. A dust cloud approached from the distance. Bruce continued, undeterred. 

"New York was rough on all of us. I don't know what you saw, Tony, but clearly it affected you. And keeping it bottled up, locking yourself in your lab, that's not going to help anything. I should know."

Tony's three and a half week stay in his lab no longer seemed preposterous to Loki. In fact, he thought he'd rather like to be there now. He felt the inventor agree. The dust cloud materialized into a black sedan--their ride home.

"None of us are happy about the Tesseract being here. There's a solution out there, we just have to find it, and we're only going to find it if we work together." As he spoke, the black car pulled up and came to a stop, idling before them. Bruce glanced at Loki's impassive face, searching for some hint that the god was even listening. Finding none, he sighed, and said in a much quieter voice, "You don't have to do this on your own."

Tony remained silent. Loki reached for the door of the car. "If you need me, you know where to find me," was all he said in way of reply, before climbing into the backseat and closing the door on Banner's worried face. Without another hesitation, the car sped off into the distance. 

 


	4. ....

They maintained their silence as the car bounced over the uneven road on the way back to Las Vegas. Tony spoke up only to suggest calling the private jet, instead of going back to the hotel room. Loki did so without question. From there, they were silent on the way to the airport. They were silent on the private plane ride home; the flight attendant flirted and offered drinks, but Loki waved her off. Only when she gave up and returned to the back of the plane did the silence end. 

_Do we want to speculate on what that was?_

_What was what?_ Loki grumbled unconvincingly, knowing exactly what _that_ was. He stared hard out the window at nothing, trying to distance himself from the recent events.

_So that’s a no_ , Tony said. _But too bad. I don’t have anything else to do in here. That one you called the beast...who was he? Is he?_

_Leave it,_ the god said, putting up walls in his mind. Tony ignored the hint and pressed against them anyway, looking for cracks in Loki’s armor. 

_I don’t think I will. I mean, clearly he plays a big part in this._ Tony probed deeper, and to Loki’s surprise, he was gaining ground, edging closer to memories that the god would just as soon forget.

_Who he is has no bearing on our current situation!_ Loki snapped. He did his best to reinforce the mental walls, deterring Tony for less than a moment. 

_Whoever he is has a whole fucking lot to do with our situation. Whatever the hell happened to us in that debrief was triggered by_ him _._

Loki clenched his teeth. _Not by_ him _, Stark. By the_ Void _. I spent quite a bit of time there myself, but even your short venture into it left a lasting impression. It was a shared experience. Nothing more._

Tony was relentless, still pushing against the god’s reinforcements. _And our shared experience winds back to him._

_No it doesn’t. I promise you, it does not._ Loki insisted. _Now drop it._

Tony tsked. _Oh, you don’t see it? Did the all-powerful god actually_ miss _something?_

_What?_

_I’ll give you a hint._ Tony’s memory from before cropped up, so similar to those of the god’s. Similar, Loki saw, in more ways than one. 

** The Void. Manhattan below. Chitauri army above, swarming like locust around the portal. Great leviathans made of teeth and scales. Space stations armed with weapons he couldn’t comprehend. And behind it all, tendrils of something dark, seeping into the back of his mind, calling him down. Whispers of letting go, closing his eyes, drifting off… **

Understanding hit Loki like a ton of bricks. _You’ve met him._

_Not exactly._ Tony finally paused in his search. _He talked. I listened._

_People tend to do that when he speaks._

_Who was he?_

Loki sighed aloud. _There’s a saying on your world: I am not quite_ drunk _enough to discuss this,_ the god answered dryly. _Suffice to say, what you’ve experienced in my memories does not even scratch the surface of what he is truly capable of. He courts Death and lets nothing stand in his way. Let us hope that we can keep Midgard out of his path._

_That’s all you’re going to give me?_

_Forgive me if I’d rather not relive certain experiences._ Loki bit out. 

_Why did you get involved with him in the first place?_

_That’s none of your business._

_He’s threatening Earth for the second time, and it seems you led him here. Yeah, it’s my business._

_No, it is not, and this conversation is_ over _._ Loki hunched his shoulders, trying to turn away from Stark’s prying questions and knowing full well the only way to escape them would be to find another body to inhabit. Tony, perhaps feeling as if he had pried all he could from the god for now, finally settled down for the rest of the flight. 

After an agonizingly long trip ( _It was five hours, you big baby_ ), they finally touched down in JFK. No sooner had the jet’s wheels hit the tarmac than Stark’s phone went off in his pocket, vibrating angrily against Loki’s leg, accompanied by the sounds of a Midgardian pop song by a group the inventor’s memories identified as “The Spice Girls”. Tony was immediately on edge. 

_Answer it._

Loki pulled the phone and and glanced at the screen; the name “Pepper Potts” flashed on the display. 

_Answer it, right now._

_And tell her what? That we’re oh so sorry and we’re going to hop on board Fury’s idea after all?_

_I don’t know. I don’t know. But if you let that go to voicemail, she_ will _end you._

The god stared at the phone a second longer, weighing the pros and cons. 

_The pro is we’ll stay alive. Just say what I tell you._

There was enough in Tony’s recent memory to sway Loki to his side. _Fine._ He tapped the green icon and brought the phone to his ear.

“You’re unbelievable,” a low, angry voice hissed over the speaker. Tony cringed.

“Hey...Pep,” Loki said at the inventor’s prompting. “I see someone told you about the meeting.”

“You can thank Captain Rogers for that,” Pepper continued sourly. “We aren’t your _parents_ , Tony. You are an adult, and you have to start acting like one. Throwing a tantrum and storming out of a team meeting is not adult. I can’t believe I have to tell you this.”

_Tell her if she flies to New York, I’ll show her something adult._

Loki nearly choked. _Stark, do you have a death wish?_

_It’ll be funny._

_Yes, but it will not_ end well. _Do you even think before you speak?_

Tony mumbled something about being a buzzkill before feeding Loki another set of lines.

“The meeting was a waste of my time. I’m not going to help Fury shoot us in the foot.” 

Pepper blew out a long-suffering sigh. “Look, I don’t know what the meeting was about. I don’t want to know, frankly, but turning Stark Tower into a base was _your_ idea. Funding the Avengers was _your_ idea. You’re part of a team, now, Tony. And you need to act like it.”

“Didn’t you read my file? I don’t play well with others.”

“So what, you’re quitting the team? Just like that.” Her frustration was growing.

“No, I’m going to work on a solution. _Alone_.”

Pepper barked a laugh of disbelief. “Tony, I swear if you barricade yourself in that lab again--”

“Too late. I’ve got a planet to save. Don’t call me.”

“Tony--”

_Hang up on her._

_What--_

_Hang up on her._

With an irritated noise, Loki pressed the “end call” button and shoved the phone into his jacket pocket. _You have the tact of an infant._

Tony ignored the jab. _Good job on reciting your lines, by the way._

_What was the purpose of taking that phone call?_ Loki said, standing up from the jet’s plush seats and stretching. _You undoubtedly made things worse._

_I owed her part of an explanation._

The god shook his head as he trotted down the plane’s steps, into the shockingly cold New York air. _You owe her_ a lot _more._

_Probably_ , Tony answered, somewhat distractedly; his eye was drawn to the very recognizable Stark Tower rising in the distance. _But I can’t make it up to her without control of my body. One problem at a time. To the lab, Severus._

_What are these names you keep calling me?_  

_I’ll tell you later, when all of this is over. Now get going._

_When all of this is over, I am going to wring your neck,_ Loki growled, annoyed with the orders of his head mate. But, with a roll of his eyes and his shoulders hunched to the wind, he set off for the distant terminal, where a private car waited to whisk them off to solitude. 

 


	5. Nightmare in Stark Tower

They were ten days out of the meeting outside of Las Vegas. Ten days of purposefully ignored phone calls from everyone in Tony’s life (Rhodey and Pepper called so often that Loki might have smashed the phone had Tony not told him about the beautiful “vibrate only” feature. One could only hear the chorus to “Wannabe” so many times before going mad). Ten days of unsolicited comments, memories that weren't his, and listening to Tony perform the whole of something called _The Wall_ whenever Loki wasn't wholly concentrating on finding a new residence. Their mental synchronization the first day had to very well be a fluke, the god decided. There was no way their minds shared enough in common to actually work together (as evidenced by Stark's never-ending karaoke). And the constant clashing of consciousnesses made sleeping very difficult. 

_We don't need no education!_

_I cannot focus on a solution if I am constantly exhausted,_ Loki had explained as he lay awake on the third night.

_We don't need no thought control!_ Tony sang louder in response. Loki groaned out loud and rolled over, pressing the pillow over his ears even though he knew it did no good. 

In the end, it took a twenty-one hours on, three hours off work schedule to shut the inventor up. Loki remembered Thor gushing about something called “coffee”, and at Stark’s insistence he quickly became addicted to maintain this routine. But, whereas Stark liked his coffee black and bitter, Loki needed at least one part sugar to one part coffee. 

_This is a cardinal sin_ , Tony said with disgust as Loki upended the sugar shaker over his mug. 

_And so is your singing. We’re even,_ Loki answered, taking a sip of the sugary black sludge and smiling as Stark gagged.

The first order of business had been determining if switching bodies were even possible, which meant seeing if Loki could still use magic. The inventor lost hope immediately. 

"All living creatures have the biological capacity to perform magic," the god explained aloud. It was disconcerting to carry on conversations without sound; it brought back unpleasant memories. "Whether they have the mental capacity to wield it meaningfully is another story."

_If humans were able to use magic, we'd have discovered it already. We're adaptable like that._

"Adaptability does not denote intelligence or capacity for knowledge. Now _silence_."

Tony quieted, waiting eagerly to see the god fail. Loki closed his eyes, let his body relax, and reached. 

He could feel the untapped potential in the mortal's veins, humming along neural synapses, waiting to be commanded. Holding the power proved difficult, however. Time after time the current slipped through his fingers. The magic was _there_ , but he couldn't touch it. His brow furrowed in frustration with each failed attempt. 

_If this is a matter of intelligence, it doesn't say a whole lot about yours._

"I said silence!" Loki hissed back. He set his jaw, inhaled through his nose, and reached a final time. 

** Asgard. Royal chambers. Hard wooden floors and the smell of incense. An old spell, a simple spell, in a book before him. Mounting irritation. A hand on his shoulder. Calm words that soothed frustration. "Patience; you cannot force yourself to learn. Find the path and do it again." **

Loki found the currents flowing through the mortal's body once more, and as he exhaled, a small, watery ball of light bloomed into existence on the lab's cement floors. _Knowledge, Stark._ It was a pathetic show of magic by the god's normal standards, but this wasn't normal. It was mildly surprising that the light endured, rather than fizzling out in seconds. It meant there was more latent energy in Stark's body than Loki had anticipated. This boded well for the larger task at hand.

_The floating ball of light is great and all,_ Tony piped up. _Really, very impressive. If only humanity had figured out a way to project light into the air on our own. Then we'd really be getting somewhere. This is almost as great as being an autonomous person again!_

"I never said it would be easy, Stark. Your body is so weak I couldn't hope to cast more advanced spells without injuring it. Be glad _this_ is even possible."

_But what was that you said about it being a matter of intelligence?_

Loki huffed a breath and picked himself off of the floor. "It's one thing to know how to wield an axe. It's entirely another to build up the muscle required to lift it."

_Well that's just great. How long until you can 'lift the axe'?_

It was a good question, but Loki had no time estimate. It all depended on the one who was learning. "My knowledge will accelerate the process, but it will take time to build up the endurance to actually pull off a body switching spell. Perhaps months."  

Tony groaned loudly and offered the mental equivalent of stomping around in frustration.

_"_ I am as thrilled as you, Stark. _"_

_At least you can use your arms._

There was no arguing with that.

_So what now?_

“Practice.” Loki said simply. 

It would be a simple matter to build endurance--long, but simple. With a mug of his barely-coffee beside him and an intricate knowledge of novice spells memorized, Loki set to work. He started with small spells, spells he hadn’t cast in millenia: levitating spells, fire-starting spells, frost spells, light spells. He cast each, over and over and over again, until the objects no longer wavered in mid air, and fires burned consistently, and frost didn’t melt, and the light didn’t extinguish. Each night the god fell onto the lab’s futon, spent from the day’s work, and three hours later he woke to carry out the same routine. It wasn’t until a week in that realized he might be pushing himself too hard. 

_What’s on my hands?_ Tony asked at one that morning, far too awake for Loki (he wasn’t a morning person to begin with, but Stark’s sleep schedule was murder). The god lifted his third mug of sugary, caffeinated slime to his lips and drained it in one long swig. 

_Dirt, probably? I don’t know,_ he grunted, slamming the mug on the counter and reaching for another freshly-brewed pot of coffee. 

_You didn’t even look._

_You know I don’t achieve maximum use of my vision until at_ least _my fifth Mug of Sin._

_It’s not a joke. There is something wrong with my hand._

The note of concern in Stark’s voice gave Loki pause, and he focused on the hand that was gripping the coffee pot, blinking at least a dozen times to clear the sleep from his eyes. And, to his surprise, Stark was right. Loki frowned, bringing his palm closer to his face. A spiderweb of gradiated red lines curled over his skin, twisting darkly around his fingers and branching out into fainter lines across the back of his hand, reaching towards his wrist. Loki woke up immediately. 

_Well, that’s not good._

_I_ told _you. What is it?_

The god leaned back against the counter, bringing up his other hand to examine, fresh coffee forgotten. Sure enough, the left hand bore the same swirling marks. 

_It’s seiðr burn._

_Seether-what now?_

_You, as a mortal ignorant of the bigger picture, do not have the knowledge base for me to fully explain the concept._

_Then dumb it down for me, if you know so much, oh wise one._

Loki licked his lips and flexed his fingers; there wasn’t pain, just a faint tingling in his fingertips. _This is the result of magical overexertion. Seiðr is magic, and magic is just harnessing excess energy produced by the body. If the magical pathways are overloaded, either by casting a spell out of one’s range or channeling power the caster isn’t strong enough for, they overheat and burn the caster. Mages have died from seiðr burn._

_Can you fix it?_

_The tissues heal on their own. Until then, it would be wise not to perform anymore spells. That would only make the seiðr burn worse._

Tony stewed. _So we just sit here until the burns heal._

Loki was as irritated by the burn as Tony. He hated the thought of sitting around and doing _nothing_. It had been centuries--literal _centuries_ \--since last he’d burned himself with magic. The burn was just another reminder of how weak and fragile this human form was. 

_No,_ Loki said, _we’re not going to just sit here. But perhaps we’ll just...ease up on the workload. We could start with getting a full eight hours of sleep._

_Sleep is for the weak._

_How many times must I remind you of how frail and breakable your body is? This seiðr burn is proof of that._

_Five hours._

_Six._

Tony hesitated before sighing. _Fine._

_We can return to a reduced exercise schedule at a reasonable hour._ Loki said, immediately turning to pour the coffee down the sink. _An absurd schedule like the one you live by only slows our progress. Sleep will do us well._

_Let’s hope we sleep, then,_ Tony said, with a note of apprehension that Loki ignored in favor of falling down into bed. The caffeine in his system wasn’t enough to combat his utter exhaustion, and he was asleep almost instantly. 

The funny thing about sharing a body with another being, of having two minds so close together, was that one couldn’t fall asleep without the other. It meant that Stark was dragged into a deeper slumber than he cared for. And the funny thing about not resting for more than three hours a night ensured that sleep was deep and dreamless. 

But this sleep was longer, lighter, and it was not such a peaceful sleep. 

** Afghanistan. Somewhere. Sometime. A chill that seeps into bones and deep tissue, shivering that won’t end. Darkness that expands across his field of vision, swallowing every ounce of light. Perpetual dampness, clothes that cling wetly to glistening skin, water washing over his face, forcing its way into his open mouth and nose, choking him. Crying out for air and sucking in only soaked cloth, coughing and thrashing at hands that hold him under. Blackness is all he sees, a Void, and he is falling into it. A smooth voice whispering unintelligibly over the sounds of his struggle. It is wet and dark and cold and there is a terror in his shaking bones, help me help mehelpmeHELPME-- **

Loki jerked violently awake, coughing and gasping for air. He sat upright, planting his feet firmly on the floor and wrapping a blanket around his shivering body, holding it close as he caught his breath. His lungs ached desperately as though he had been drowning, as though there had really been someone forcing his head down into freezing water. As if it were more than a dream. 

“Stark,” Loki called out, voice hoarse. He hated the way it cracked and faltered. Louder, again he spoke, “Stark!”

Tony was there, but he was a shell, trembling at the very edges of their mind. That was the other thing, about sharing a body. There was nowhere to hide. 

_Sleep is for the weak,_ he spat out with a shaking voice, and Loki understood then, fully, why the mortal stayed in his lab, why he refused to sleep for a reasonable span. The god sank back into the well-worn couch, pulled his feet up beneath him and hugged the blanket tighter about his shoulders. 

_The memories follow you._

_No shit,_ Tony snarled; he was very clearly angry, ashamed, and (somewhat sensibly) afraid that Loki was going to use this against him. His anxiety was terribly reminiscent of Loki’s first day in the mortal’s body, and it wouldn’t do to relapse into another panicked episode.

_It doesn’t have to,_ the god said calmly. 

_What, you want to_ help _?_ Tony’s laugh was sharp and derisive. _Do you have a magic spell to fix this, too?_

_Yes._

_I don’t need help,_ Tony answered, voice bitter. _And even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t come to_ you _._

_Stark. I cannot emphasize enough how little I care about whatever plagues you. But when it affects me--_

_Right, right, just like that beast or whoever doesn’t affect_ me _._

Loki blinked in surprised. _I don’t see how that’s related to this._

_Oh no, of course you don’t. You have an utter breakdown and it’s none of my business, but gods forbid I have a single nightmare and suddenly it’s your problem, too._

_We_ need _to_ sleep _._

_And I need to know what the hell your presence means for Earth._

Loki blew air loudly out of nose, frustrated by Stark’s bullheadedness. There were two options in this case: he could endure Stark’s night terrors, an unappealing and sleepless path, or he could speak the beast’s name for the first time in months. An equally appalling idea. 

_Your choice, Reindeer Games._ Tony was almost smug in his response, as if he already knew what the god’s decision would be. Finally, Loki sucked in a breath.

_His name is Thanos._

Tony was taken aback. _Wait, what?_

_The beast. His name is Thanos._

There was a beat as Tony collected his thoughts. _You know, that was really anticlimactic. I was expecting something like Zorgon Lord of Dismembered Heads or something equally menacing._

Tony was back to his old snarky self, it seemed. A good thing; Loki preferred this Tony to the overtly antagonistic one. _He was in your head, Stark. That should tell you enough about him._

_Point. But what’s his deal?_

_Universal domination. Wooing Death herself. Spilling blood for sport._

_A very typical baddie. I see why you would want to work with him._

A white-hot rage flashed through Loki, so unexpected it threw him off guard. _I didn’t_ want _to work with him!_ he exploded. 

Stark immediately backed off. _Geez, woah, okay. That’s a hot button. What else was I supposed to think, though? Were you just using him to blow up New York? Murder hundreds?_

Loki pressed the back of his clenched fist to his lips, steadying his own breathing. _How I came to work for Thanos...that is a long story._

_Well, we’ve got time._ Tony said, eyeing the digital clock embedded in the lab’s south wall. It read 3:35 am _._ The god, however, was unwilling to relive those particular memories. 

_Or, y’know, we could always go back to sleep and see what else my fucked up psyche has to offer._

_There likely won’t be a difference,_ Loki responded. But perhaps some good would come of relaying the tale. Maybe someone, for once, would _believe_ him. And then maybe he could get some much-needed rest. Loki made his decision, and began.

 

* * *

 

It all started as he was hanging off the edge of the Bifrost realizing fully, for the first time, just how _little_ he meant in the eyes of his father. There had been doubts, over the years. Odin had always appeared to favor Thor, but now Loki understood; there was no “appearing” to favor. It had all been there, laid before him for the last few millennia. In Odin’s eyes, Loki saw no concern, no love, no hope for redemption. There was no reason for him to hang on, to cling to a life that would never be what he wanted. So he let go. 

...and regretted it mere seconds later. The Void was endless, all encompassing, a prison for all eternity. But there was no calling for help, not now. He wondered if Odin would even offer it if asked. The glow of Asgard faded quickly as he fell, and before long the Void had swallowed him whole. 

He was cold as he floated in the space between spaces, an unnerving feeling. He’d never felt cold in all his years. But there was more than cold, here. Loki became aware of a presence, something watching him, like an observer standing behind one-way glass. Then the voice started speaking, whispering seductively in his ear. The savory words held no sway over the immortal; it was all nothing that Loki hadn’t encountered before. He ignored the sweet nothings with ease. That was when he first caught the beast’s attention. 

Thanos came to him like a savior, offering a hand to the abandoned god shivering amidst nothing. He promised fame, riches, glory. But Loki craved none of that. He looked into the beast’s shimmering eyes and demanded only one thing: revenge. And Thanos smiled, and agreed. 

In Thanos’s realm were many things, many powerful artefacts thought lost to the ages. Loki was a privileged guest among the beast’s other followers, a god among mortals. He drank it all up, listened to Thanos talk of Infinity Stones and a Gauntlet that could bring them together (this Gauntlet Loki knew well, as he had spent hours in Asgard’s armory where it was stored). Thanos saw Loki as a way in, a lucky happenstance. Loki saw Thanos as an opportunity to exploit.

Loki’s target was Midgard, Thanos told him, where an Infinity Stone lay just awakened. 

“My people have told me where it is. We have it’s location, and we know it’s properties. Terra will be an easy target.” Thanos said, motioning to a large screen before him. The god squinted at it, but took none of it in. 

“What is my plan of attack?” Loki wondered, to which the beast produced a scepter; bronze and silver, ornately patterned, with a wicked blade that curved over a dancing stone. 

“The Mind Stone,” Thanos explained, catching Loki’s interested expression. “Able to twist any soul to the delight of the wielder.” He handed the scepter to the god, who held it with delicate fingers. This was it, then. This was his ticket to Thanos’s realm. The god bowed low before the beast. 

“I shall prepare at once.”

And he did prepare. He stole the minds of every human and alien who crossed his path on the way back to his chambers. He amassed an army of trained and armed soldiers, Thanos’s most loyal. The scepter gave him a taste of more power than he ever dreamed of; with the power of the Mind Stone, Loki had no doubt he could enslave the All Father himself. The thought fueled his hunger for revenge. 

But alas, it was a foolish move. The god overestimated his abilities, his superiority, his scepter-granted power. A daughter of Thanos, bald and blue and unwaveringly loyal, discovered his plan before Loki’s army had grown large enough. Alarms were sounded. The bloodbath began. 

It ended with Loki crouched on the rocky floor, clutching at a bleeding wound in his side as Thanos stood over him. He thought perhaps death was next; he was foolish to think that the beast would let him off so easy. 

Instead, he was collared and shackled and beaten until bones cracked under his alabaster skin. Thanos held the godling’s leash short, and it wasn’t until he was at his last breath that the beast offered him a chance at a throne one last time. No revenge to be reaped upon Asgard, just a defeated god sitting on the seat of a planet that was far beneath him. His servitude would grant him only humiliation and insult. But Loki had no room or will to resist. Broken, defeated, he accepted Thanos’s deal.

“Cross me again,” Thanos purred, as Loki coughed into a pool of his own blood, “And I will see to it that you never know Death’s sweet embrace.” 

The conquered god accepted the scepter one last time, but in desperation, he saw his opportunity. He saw his way out. 

He played his part on Midgard, securing the Tesseract, preparing for Thanos’s army. But his mind spells were purposefully weak, broken by the slightest head trauma. His methods were loud and full of bravado, so that the heroes of Earth could find him with ease. And the Tesseract, ultimate power embodied, was tethered to the scepter in his hand. 

It played out just as Loki had planned; the Tesseract was stolen from Thanos’s reach, and Loki was whisked away to the relative safety of Asgard. 

_And then they chopped your head off._

_Yes, well, better that than in Thanos’s hands._

_Riiiight._ Tony said skeptically.

For some inexplicable reason, Loki felt his heart fall. _You don’t believe me._ And of course Tony didn’t. By all accounts, he would be unwise to believe the story. Loki was the god of _lies_ , after all. He _relished_ in people’s mistrust of him. He _encouraged_ it. Here, though, in this instance, the disbelief was...disheartening.

_I like to think that I don’t know you all that well. You’re the asshole in horns who destroyed a city. Your brother tells us, repeatedly, of all the times you tricked him. And you expect me to take your word that you were_ forced _to do all that? That matches up with exactly zero of what I‘ve seen or been told about you._

It made perfect sense. Accepting the god’s account as truth would be foolish, and Tony Stark was not a fool. He would not make foolish mistakes. Loki should not have been bitter because of this. But he was. 

_Do you want to sleep or not?_ Loki snapped, body tense under the blanket. Nevermind that it was this spell that had allowed Loki himself to even sleep after the events that Stark didn’t trust to have happened. Nevermind that Stark had _experienced_ a choice few of those memories.

_Fine, yes, reveal to me your secrets._ Tony sighed, annoyed with what he believed to be characteristic Loki pettiness. 

Magic, it turned out, was another strange part of sharing a body. Despite Tony’s lack of control over his own limbs, he was able to harness--at least rudimentarily--the magic that flowed through them. The spell Loki taught him was focused internally, aggravating none of the fine seiðrburns on the surface of their skin. Its effects were numbing, a mental anesthetic that eased the caster off into dreamless slumber. 

Its simplicity and internal focus allowed Tony to grasp it fairly quickly and, working grudgingly together, they drifted off into a deep sleep. There were no more dreams that night, no more nightmares. But neither of them slept well anyway.

 

 


	6. Hokey Religions and Magical Gatherings

The time that followed was filled with an uneasy tension between the two, the both of them trying very hard to forget that the other existed (this was somewhat harder for Tony, who spent most of his time daydreaming about having control over his limbs again). Loki eased up on his magical regimen, gave the seiðr buns a chance to heal, and for the first day, all was well. He wondered about the lab to pass the time, read a few novels that had been discarded (by Pepper or by Rhodey, Loki didn’t know, but they surely didn’t belong to Stark) on the counter in the kitchenette cover to cover. Twice. He attempted to cook, but after fifteen days in the lab all the food that remained was coffee and something called Top Ramen (which bore a taste not unlike that of dried leather) in the cupboards. 

Loki acknowledged Tony’s presence only to question him on this. _You are rich beyond the dreams of most mortals,_ he said, choking down a mouthful of the tasteless pasta, _and yet this is what you subsist on?_

_I like lobster, too,_ the inventor answered icily, _but seafood just doesn’t_ last _in an engineering lab._

Deciding he wasn’t yet hungry enough to finish another packet of ramen, the god disgustedly dumped the soggy mess down the drain. 

Stark’s phone vibrated on the counter. Loki pretended it wasn’t there. 

By day two, he was bored out of his skull. It was a comfort to know that Tony, too, was nearly mad with the monotony. 

_Do something, for gods’ sakes!_ he snapped. 

_Shall I aggravate our burns further? Shall I force us to coexist longer?_ the god asked sardonically, eyeing the fading curls on his skin. In a couple more days, they would vanish entirely. 

_There are other ways to kill time than creating fairy lights and setting things on fire with magic._

_And just how many of them can be done without leaving the lab?_

_Ask Jarvis to queue up the file “STIV-ANH.mov” on the big screen._

Loki was suspicious. _What is that, exactly?_

_Just do it. I’m pretty sure you’ll like it. At the very least it keeps us from running circles in our head._ My _head. It beats this._

Loki attempted to probe Stark’s memories, to learn what this “STIV” file was, but Tony slammed a wall down in his way. The god almost smiled, despite himself; his headmate was learning. 

Agreeing that nothing could possibly be worse than another day of reading the same novels over again, Loki requested that Jarvis bring up the mystery file. All at once, the calm atmosphere that had been the norm for nearly two weeks was shattered as a deafeningly loud orchestral fanfare roared over the lab’s speakers. The god nearly jumped out of his skin; he hadn’t realized how used to absolute silence he’d grown.

_Stark, what_ is _this?_ he asked as he lunged for the volume control. On screen, large yellow letters scrolled across a backdrop of stars. 

_Star Wars, a great Midgardian epic. Thor loves it._

The moving text gave way to a firefight in some sort of space vessel. _I’m sure he does._

Loki made an honest effort not to care about the action on screen, not to give Stark that satisfaction. He wanted a break in the monotony, sure, but he also (stubbornly) detested the idea of Tony having a good idea. He didn’t want to be _entertained_ by the film. Yet there was something engaging about the poorly-rendered movie playing on-screen that drew him in. He could see instantly why Thor would be a fan; there were story-telling elements very similar to the famous Aesir epics. An impressive enemy, a hero’s rise to greatness…

_….a space station that can blow up planets…_

_Is that coming next from Stark Industries’ research and development?_

_You have to admit, it would be a great way to deter Earth’s enemies. Thanos wouldn’t come near us._

_Thanos won’t have to. He’ll coerce someone to steal your space station and use it on Earth._

_Someone like you?_ Tony’s words were biting.

Loki thinned his lips. _Yes, a fool like me._

They conversed no more after that, but the silence wasn’t quite so tense this time around. The film distracted them from their internal cabin fever. Tony only spoke up when the end credits rolled, telling Loki how to bring up the sequel (which the god enjoyed, right up until the truth of Luke’s parentage was revealed; something about it hit too close to home), and the third movie after that (Vader’s death was not nearly as satisfying as Loki had hoped). By the time they’d finished the final installment, it was late enough to acceptably turn in for the night. 

_It’s only eight._

_Shall we stay up late discussing our problems?_ the god asked bitterly. Tony sighed in response. _Exactly. The burns should be well enough to continue training tomorrow._

The inventor’s no doubt snarky response was cut off by the loud clattering of his phone vibrating against the counter. It was the third time today--even “vibrate’ had become grating. Loki snatched it off the counter, just to make it shut up. 

“What,” he bit out into the mouthpiece.

“He lives,” a woman’s voice--not Pepper’s--said into his ear. “I figured you’d be too afraid to let this go to voicemail.”

“To be quite honest, Nat,” Loki answered, wondering why he hadn’t just thrown the phone against a wall to shut it up, “I didn’t check caller ID before answering. Nonetheless, I’m hanging up. Don’t call me again. Good-bye.”

“Wait, wait wait, hold on there hot shot,” she responded. “I know you want to get back to being a friendless hermit, but the captain has requested your presence on the bridge.”

“I’m working,” Loki lied through gritted teeth.

“You can work tomorrow. Come up.”

“Put him on and I’ll talk to him.”

“He said--”

“I don’t care what he said,” Loki snapped, beyond irritated that he had to deal with Stark’s messes. “You’re lucky I answered the phone at all. He will talk to me now, or we will not talk at all.”

There was a shuffling over the phone’s speaker, Nat’s muffled voice saying something about the sociopath in the basement. 

“You can’t even come up here and talk to me yourself? Really?” Steve sighed into the mouthpiece. 

_Says the man who had Natasha call me instead,_ Tony jabbed. 

Loki inhaled through his nose. “What do you want, Rogers?”

“Well, one, to make sure you’re not dead--”

“Jarvis has been keeping you updated on my sleeping habits and vitals,” the god interjected, going off of the knowledge that Tony was feeding him. “You know very well I’m still alive.”

_Why did you even answer?_ the inventor asked. 

_I don’t know,_ the god admitted. 

“--and also to let you know that the Roxxon Corporation is holding a charity benefit for the victims of the Battle of New York in a couple days, and we’ve already said you’ll be there."

“Then you can also call the Roxxon Corporation and tell them that no, you spoke out of turn. I will not be attending after all.”

“It’s too late. They’ve already announced your attendance. I hear they had a boost in benefactors after that.”

“I’m sick.”

“But not contagious. _Or_ dying.” Steve countered. There was a smile in his voice that drove Loki mad. “Sorry, Tony, there’s no backing out of this. Maybe if you’d answered my calls three days ago, you could have corrected me.”

_He’s going to hound you until you say yes. One event won’t hold anything up._ Tony reasoned. Loki gawked. 

_Are you on_ his _side?_ You _are the one who locked yourself down here in the first place._

_Do what you want._ You’re _in control, after all. But if Steve breaks down my door I want you building me a new one._

“I’m not going, Steve,” Loki nearly spat, and hung up before the other could say anything. He threw the phone away, listening to the satisfying _clunk_ as it all but shattered on the lab floor. 

_Was that necessary?!_ Tony shouted, incensed. 

_I’ll just help you build a new one._ Loki sneered back. Without another word, he flicked off the lights and curled back up on the couch, hoping tomorrow he could return to his work. 

 

 


	7. Accidental Heroics

_The seiðr burns are gone,_ Tony noted the next morning when Loki rolled out of bed. _Your wish came true._ The god looked down at his hands, squinted at the worn skin. All traces of the delicate lines had vanished. 

_At long last,_ he sighed in relief. He wasn’t sure he could take another day of entertaining both himself and his headmate. 

_It must be so hard to not be in a position to keep yourself busy,_ Tony said sarcastically. 

Loki shook his head, slid off the couch and onto the cement floor that had become his workspace. _Soon, Stark. If all goes as planned, soon. Despite the setbacks, your body has been far more receptive to the magical exercises than I anticipated. In a matter of days it will be strong enough to cast the separation spell._

_Really?_ Tony was mildly shocked. _I was expecting months. Am I just that good?_

_No, but you are a willing participant. It would be much more work if you wanted to keep me here. Or if I were to seek out another unwilling host._

_Yeah, speaking of unwilling hosts...where are we going to find you a new body? If I recall, yours was--_

_\--burned, probably._ Loki answered. On his hands and knees, he arranged an assortment of items around his space: a chipped mug, a large bolt, a clump of tangled wire. _I had considered the problem. My plan was to steal a working body that the soul had vacated._

Tony was wary. _And where would you find a body like that?_

The image of a hospital appeared in their mind, dredged up from Tony’s memories. He revolted. 

_A coma patient? You’d steal another person’s life?_

The god huffed in frustration and sat back on his haunches. _Barring other options, yes. It would be by no means permanent; gods, no. I will not spend my days jumping from mortal host to mortal host. A temporary solution to get me out of your hair, literally._

_No._ If Tony had control of his head, he would have been shaking it emphatically. _I won’t allow that. Watch me resist your spell._

_Then what shall I do? Hm? Stay in your body forever?_

Tony was torn, mentally chewing his lip in thought. _Can you_ make _yourself a body? Pull a Victor Frankenstein?_

Loki scoffed, setting back about his work. _Don’t be absurd. If I take a body, I will endeavor to ensure that there is not a hint of living soul still within it._

_Fine,_ the inventor grunted reluctantly. _But if I think of a better route you’re going to take it._

The god settled himself down into a cross legged position on the cold floor, arms resting on his knees. _And I will be all ears._

He practiced his magic, uninterrupted, for a blessed few hours. Tony busied himself on finding a solution to their two-souls-one-body dilemma, making concentration all the more simple. The harnessing of the latent energies in the inventor’s veins came easier now; Loki barely had to think to grab it, twist it, mold it to his whim. The mug on the floor, old and chipped, melted and reformed on a whim. The bolt hovered in midair with barely a thought. It was easy for Loki to make it glow as bright as he liked. The twisted wire curled and writhed like a multi-headed snake on the cement. Yes, they were almost there. The end was in sight. 

The good day ended around noon, however. The stillness of the lab was broken by a loud, jarring pulse, accompanied by the most annoying strobing red light. 

_What is that?_ Loki jerked his head up, the ball of light he had been working between his fingers dying out. Tony, roused from his brainstorming by the din, squirmed uncomfortably. 

_It's the all-call. The Avengers are needed somewhere._

Loki hmphed. _Let’s hope they can do it without Iron Man._

_Of course they can,_ Tony said defensively. _They’ve been doing fine without me for weeks. And besides, do you know how many of these calls we get a week? It’s probably nothing._ He seemed to be assuring himself as much as Loki. 

_Then we’re agreed. This is not my concern. We can continue._

Tony’s response was a mumbled and not wholly convincing affirmation. But it was enough for Loki.

"Jarvis, silence the alarm in my lab,” he said aloud. 

“Certainly, sir,” the AI chimed in response. The buzzer shut off instantly, and Loki settled himself back down to work on the exercise routines. He found himself distracted, however; despite Stark’s assurances that his team would be fine, the inventor was fixating on them. And his fixation was hard to work around.

_They’ll be_ fine _without Iron Man,_ Loki emphasized. _The best thing you can do for them is letting me work._

_I said I wasn’t worried._

_No, you’re guilty, and that’s worse. Stop it._

_Just get back to work,_ Tony snapped, and retreated deeper into their mind. But the distracting feelings were still there, still interfering with Loki’s ability to cast even a novice-level spell. After another failed attempt at levitating the mug before him, the god threw his hands up in exasperation.

“Stark!”

_I’m sorry!_ Tony shouted back. _Maybe you could just pull their progress up on one of Jarvis’s screens…_

_And what good would that do? Even if they were in trouble, which they_ aren’t _, there is nothing you can do._

There was a very long, very uneasy pause from Stark. _I could show you how to fly the suit,_ he said at last, voice quiet. 

_Now you’re just being stupid,_ Loki jeered, lowering his hands to position one more time. _Let me concentrate._

_Activate the screen and I’ll shut up._

Loki pinched the bridge of his nose. “Alright, fine. Jarvis, can you pull up the current mission profile on the main screen?”

Jarvis immediately brought up a message labeled “URGENT”, sent from the UN offices. “The Ambassador from Latveria reported an experimental drone went haywire during a routine test at twenty-one hundred hours Eastern Standard time,” the AI read aloud. “It is not responding to the remote self-destruct signals sent by the base it was launched from, nor will it turn back from its set target. Its last known speed and trajectory put it somewhere over the Atlantic, headed towards the East Coast, with an ETA of forty minutes. 

“The ambassador reports that the drone is armed with weapons of a classified nature and will not specify the scope of the damage it would create should it reach the Coast. The Avengers have been requested to deactivate the drone, neutralize the threat, and secure the remains to the United States government.”

“Mute,” Loki said, stopping Jarvis before he could go any further. _Happy?_

_It’s just a drone. Nothing big,_ Tony reassured himself. _Yes, I guess. Proceed. Leave the screen up, though._

Loki set his eyes back on the mug sitting on the concrete. _Whatever keeps you silent._

But Tony didn’t stay silent. Not three minutes later he was unwittingly dragging Loki’s attention back to the screen with his anxiety. The mission briefing had disappeared, replaced by real-time footage from the quinjet. Comm chatter flickered in lightning-fast subtitles across the bottom. 

_They’re taking a beating…_ Tony said worriedly. 

_And there is nothing you can do about it._

Tony didn’t tear his eyes from the perceived chaos on the screen. _You could put on the suit…_

_And do what, exactly? Accidentally self-destruct? Your armor is a death trap to someone who is unskilled._

_It’s not_ skill _, it’s_ knowledge _._

_I’m actually fairly certain that it’s a skill, Stark._

On screen, something exploded. 

_That drone is headed for the East Coast. If they don’t stop it, Stark Tower could go up in flames._

_If I have no faith in your team, which I don’t, I at least trust Thor to handle it._

Another fireball went up on the screen; someone was hit. No, _Thor_ was hit. The thunder god recovered quickly from the hit, but that didn’t mean the next wouldn’t take him down.  Loki narrowed his eyes. 

_Still trust Thor?_

With an irritated sigh, Loki picked himself up off the floor and crossed the room to get a better look at the screen. 

From the looks of it, the Avengers were, in fact, losing. The mission briefing had failed to mention that the drone was armed with more than an unspecified payload; some sort of aft-mounted gun array was keeping the heroes at bay. None of the Avenger’s ranged attacks left any mark on the drone’s experimental hull, and it seemed not even Thor could get around the fire to dismantle the weapon. 

_I’d bet if I could get close enough to that drone in a suit, I’d be able to find a weak spot. Maybe a way to take out those guns._

_I am not flying your armor._

_Then you can kiss chances of survival goodbye, because there is no way they are going to stop that thing before it detonates whatever the hell it’s carrying._

_I am dead either way, then._

_No, you’re not. You have my muscle memory, my actual memories, and_ me _. I’m not looking to die anymore than you are._

Loki chewed over the idea, glancing from the screen to the line of Tony’s suits at the other end of lab. 

_I can give you a fighting chance at not dying,_ Tony assured. And, Loki admitted, he _could_. 

_Fine!_ he relented. _Fine. Tell me what to do._

Tony guided him to one particular suit, nearly indistinguishable from the dozens of others in the wall. 

_The Mark VII,_ he said dramatically.

_Should I be impressed?_

_Well, it_ is _the suit I used to kick your ass...so, yeah._

_Weren’tyour friends in dire need of assistance?_

_I just wanted to clue you in on the irony,_ Tony explained, then jumped right to business. _I’ve put these suits under lockdown for certain reasons. Only I know the override code: authorization november-charlie-charlie zero five one four._

Loki repeated the code aloud, and jumped back as the suit came to life, stepping out of the wall of its own power.

_I promise it won’t hurt you,_ Tony crooned mockingly. The god just ground his teeth. 

_What next?_

From there, Tony talked him through stepping into the armor, gave him a run down on the multitude of systems that he had to control--flight, weapons, life support, communications--making snarky comments as he went. But it was a front, Loki knew; the inventor was just as on edge as he was. The ten minute tutorial he was given was nowhere near enough to prepare him. 

On screen, the drone’s ETA fell to just twenty-eight minutes. 

_Ready to go?_ Tony asked.

_Not in the slightest,_ Loki answered honestly. _But I have no plans to die today._

_That makes two of us. Let’s go._

The god hesitated for only a fraction of a second, enjoying the feel of solid ground beneath his feet, before launching himself towards the lab’s external entrance. 

The flight itself was breathtaking, to be perfectly honest. It wasn’t as if Loki had never flown before (he had taken the form of a bird too many times to count in the past); he knew how to navigate the air currents, how to swoop and dive and turn on a dime. Truthfully, he had missed the skies. 

_You’re actually enjoying this_ , the inventor said with an air of smugness.

_When I’m not fearing for my life,_ Loki shot back. _Your suit is not nearly as responsive as you let on, and it is far clunkier than it is agile._

_She might not feel like much, but she’s got it where it counts,_ Tony quipped in his best Harrison Ford impression (which, for the record, was terrible). 

_Your allusion to such an unreliable piece of machinery does nothing to inspire faith in me._ At this, Tony laughed--it was the first genuine sound the inventor had made since they were forced together over a fortnight ago.

_Just don’t stall and you’ll be fine, I promise._

_If we survive this, I have a few upgrades in mind for your suit._

_Wings?_

_Something to that effect,_ Loki answered, and grinned. _But I’d settle for a working hyperdrive._ The flight to the drone’s position was mostly uneventful after this; as they neared the drone’s position, the reality of the upcoming battle settled in. Five minutes after they’d left land behind, soaring out over the Atlantic, an icon lit up on the HUD.

_We’re within comm range of the quinjet,_ Tony noted; no sooner had he finished speaking than the helmet was instantly filled with the anxious voices of Stark’s teammates. 

“--could get close, Mjolnir would have no trouble turning this machine to scrap,” Thor was saying. It was only a few moments later that they came into visual range, and Loki could see his brother just managing to dodge the drone’s weapon’s fire, clearly favoring his left side. No one as yet had noticed the Iron Man suit flying towards them.

The quinjet was following the drone, hot on its tail. It took a shot at the offending gun, but the bullets bounced harmlessly off. “I’ve got a clear shot but our weapons are doing nothing. Whatever this thing is made of, it’s still too much for us.” Natasha reported from her position at the quinjet’s weapons control. 

“We need to get closer, come in under the gun,” Cap said.  

Clint snorted over the radio, “That’s not gonna’ happen. This bird can’t maneuver at such close range. I’m barely keeping us flying as it is.”

“Not the jet, but if _I_ could get on the drone, maybe--”

“That is one of your worst ideas yet, Rogers,” Loki said as he arced (not gracefully) under and over the quinjet, falling just out of range of the drone’s weapons. 

“Look who’s joining the party,” Nat said by way of greeting. 

Thor maintained his position above the drone, preventing it from gaining altitude, and said with renewed energy, “The battle may finally turn in our favor.”

“Nice to see you out of your lab, Iron Man,” Cap commented. “We could use your expertise, here.” 

“I was monitoring your progress,” Loki answered. “I was not impressed.” 

Tony had no mind for banter. He was already engrossed in Jarvis’s real-time updates on the HUD, looking for a weakness in the drone. _Fire repulsors. I want to see what we’re dealing with._

_And how shall I do that…?_

Tony made an irritated sound. _Elbow out, lock reticle on target, flex fingers to fire._

_Stark,_ you’re _the one who convinced me to charge headlong into combat with no experience. Don’t take your frustration out on_ me _._ Loki answered indignantly. There had been no time for an exhaustive rundown of the suit’s weapons systems, yet another in an ever-mounting pile of reasons that this had been a terrible plan. But he extended his arm, took aim, fired-- 

\--and then immediately lost what little balance he had attained in flight and almost fell out of the sky. The recoil on the repulsor was more violent than he’d anticipated, and had sent him spinning into a near swan dive. Meanwhile, the drone harmlessly absorbed the energy from the repulsor shot.

_Correct your flight path!_ Tony yelled, just as Loki regained stability. _You have to compensate for recoil or else you will_ stall _! And then you will_ fall _, and then_ we _will die._

Thank you _for telling me that_ before _I fired,_ Loki snarled, heart pounding loudly in his ears. 

“Stark, are you okay?” Clint asked, concerned. 

_No._ “Yes,” Loki lied. “I...haven’t had a chance to test these upgrades outside of the lab yet. I was caught off guard.”

_I would_ never _do something like that._

_Get off it._

“Well, those upgrades did jack squat against the drone. Any other ideas?”

_Maybe if you got in closer, you could find out what this thing is made of..._

“I’ll see if I can get a better shot,” Loki said over the comm. 

“Thor, cover Tony and distract the drone,” Steve ordered. 

“Aye.” The other god dove down until he was nearly on top of the drone; it immediately unleashed an impressive spread of fire that just about singed his cape. Loki took the opening, giving power to the thrusters in his boots and approaching the drone from below, out of range of its mounted weapon.

_Go in with the missiles located in your shoulder,_ Tony suggested, showing the god how to do it as he spoke. _And drop immediately after you fire._ Without complaint, Loki locked onto the target’s underbelly and launched the small warheads, then quickly cut his thrusters, falling away from the resulting explosion. When the smoke cleared, it revealed the drone unscathed, intact as ever. The god growled in frustration.

"We can't do anything until you punch through that armor," Steve reminded him over the comm. 

"Working on it," Loki grunted, dodging a stray blast from the drone and climbing back up towards it. He sent another torrent of shoulder-mounted missiles spinning towards their target, but they detonated harmlessly against the device’s plating. The HUD showed no change in the hull’s strength. 

_What a fabulous idea this was, Stark,_ Loki jabbed. _Our presence really did turn the tide of this battle._

_Shut up and let me think!_ Tony said, eyes ripping over the drone’s blueprints on the HUD. _It looks like there’s a weak spot behind the left wing; an access panel for maintenance or something. See if you can hit that._

“Direct your fire to the access panel behind the drone’s left wing,” Loki repeated out loud, raising his repulsors.

“Copy,” Clint said from the quinjet, coming around into position. Thor, too, abandoned his post as a distraction and took his place in the formation. 

“Fire!” Loki ordered, and at once the Avengers opened fire on the drone. Lightning arced out from the cloudless sky, and the quinjet’s turrets sent a salvo of ammunition spinning over Loki’s head to hit their mark behind the drone’s wing. He trained his repulsors at the perceived weak spot while Tony kept his eyes glued to the HUD. 

_It’s not working,_ Loki said impatiently. Stark was equal parts bewildered and envious.

_This thing must have a hull of vibranium._

“Well, _great_!” the god said aloud, shutting his repulsors down with a hiss. 

“Stark, what’s wrong?” came the captain’s voice. Both Thor and the quinjet cut off their attacks.

“The hull is made of vibranium. There’s no way we can get through.”

“Vibranium?” Nat asked. “Where did the Latverian government get vibranium?” 

“I would love to know that as well,” Steve said. 

“Ten minutes to impact, or we lose all of New York,” Loki chimed in, keeping an eye on the drone’s range in the corner of the HUD.

“Would it really be a loss, though?” Clint wondered aloud. 

“Not the time, Clint,” Natasha answered.

“There is a way to disable the device,” Thor cut in. “Vibranium is common on other worlds, and it is possible to melt it if exposed to a high enough heat.”

“Our combined fire wasn’t enough to melt it,” Steve responded. There was an urgent note to his voice. “I’m open to suggestions.”

_Heat..._ Tony thought, scanning the helmet’s display at lightning speed. _If we could increase the output to the suit’s unibeam, we might be able to produce a plasma at the temperature we need…I’d have to land, give me three minutes to rewire the suit--_

_No, wait,_ he said suddenly. _I have a better idea._ It was a crazy, stupid, impossibly _dangerous_ idea, but it could work…

_Absolutely not._ Loki said, putting his proverbial foot down when Tony spelled the plan out for him. _I may as well crash the suit into the drone. The end result would be the same: our fiery deaths._

_No, no it wouldn’t,_ Tony said excitedly. _This could work. It’s worked before._

_Has it? Really? How many times a day do I have to remind you how weak and fragile your mortal body is? Your insane idea_ will _kill you; and, by extension,_ me _._

_No it won’t._ Tony insisted, _I’m sure of it. Thor hit me with his lightning once before and I’m still here._

One of Tony’s memories jumped to the forefront of their shared mind. 

** A forest at night. Moonlight dancing on deep, craggy cliffs. Standing in a copse of freshly downed trees, squared off against an angry god of thunder. “You want me to put the hammer down?” **

Loki recalled the scene from a different angle, hunkered down in said craggy cliffs.

“Really need an answer, here,” came Steve’s anxious tone. 

“Six minutes to the coast,” Clint reported.

_Trust me, Loki,_ Tony said. _I know you have no intention of dying for this sad realm, but we are out of options. And I promise you, we won’t die._

Loki eyed the drone beside them and shook his head angrily. _Fine_ , he relented, pulling ahead of the wayward device. 

“Keep the quinjet on the drone’s tail,” the god shouted aloud, wasting no time. “Thor, with me!”

The plan itself was simple: the suit needed more power, and Thor had infinite power at his fingertips. He just couldn’t channel it efficiently. The pattern of his lightning was too haphazard, too chaotic; too much energy was lost before it even reached the target. But if there was a way to grab the energy, to harness it, to funnel it into the suit’s central unibeam, the resulting plasma discharge could just be hot enough to melt the drone’s outer hull. 

_This all hinges on you actually doing the magic thing well, you know._

_No, this all hinges on you being right about the beating your pathetic flesh vessel can take. I will do my part, have no doubt._

With magic being little more than electrical energy (okay, it was a bit more complicated than that, but for the purpose of Tony’s crazy stupid plan it sufficed), it wouldn’t be hard to act as a closed circuit between Thor’s lightning and Stark’s suit. Loki _had_ tried something similar in his boyhood on Asgard, in an attempt to cast more powerful spells before his time (Thor had always been eager to help). More often than not, the experiments had ended in great fires and long stays in the palace’s healing wards. But a great fire was exactly what they needed. 

Thor came up beside Loki, flanking the suit. “What is your plan, Man of Iron?” 

The words Loki spoke belonged wholly to Tony. “Do you remember ‘ _Shakespeare in the Park_ ’…?”

The trickster god explained Tony’s plan in a rush as they sped ahead of the drone. Thor was less than pleased. 

“This could damage your suit. What happens if your flight systems are disabled?”

“You had better catch me,” Loki said, pulling to a stop in midair and looking back at the drone. “Now hit me with all you’ve got.”

“Tony, I do not think this is the best course of action--” Steve added his input. 

_Neither do I._ Loki voiced his dissent one last time, hoping in vain that Stark would reconsider. 

_It’ll work, I promise._ The drone sped closer, just seconds out. _We’re out of time._

_Now or never, then._ Loki steeled himself. “Thor, now!” 

Still bearing a look of apprehension, the thunder god called the lightning to him. Dark storm clouds roiled overhead, swirling around Thor as he took the electricity now crackling around his hammer and threw it in the direction of the Iron Man suit. Loki gritted his teeth, flexed his fingers in the armor’s gauntlets. This was going to hurt.

_I hate you,_ he told Stark, right before one billion volts of electricity hit them like a freight train. 

The pain was disorienting, at first. Time slowed to a crawl as sparks rolled like raindrops down his body, jumping from his flesh to the suit and back again. It was evident that Thor had been holding back when he and Stark first fought; their meeting in the trees had not been nearly this agonizing. It took Loki precious milliseconds to get his bearings. The drone was almost upon them. 

_If this is how we die, I promise to haunt you for eternity in Hel,_ Loki moaned. 

_Then kindly, for my sake, focus on not dying._ Tony’s voice was just as strained as the god’s.

Loki ground his teeth, reached for the latent energy in the mortal’s body. The endless days spent in Stark’s lab finally came in handy. He grabbed it with ease. 

Now came the difficult part: focusing the energy and funneling it to the arc reactor in the center of the chest plate. The wiring was unfamiliar to the god, but Stark knew it intimately.

_Show me where to send it,_ Loki said, struggling to speak around the pain. 

On cue, Stark threw every blueprint to the suit in Loki’s face, showing him the path, giving him the knowledge to get the energy to the right place. The god followed the pathway, and so did the energy, desperate to ground itself. The circuit clicked effortlessly into place. 

With a triumphant shout, Loki activated the unibeam milliseconds before the drone collided with him. The supercharged repulsor, fueled by Thor’s lightning, cut through the drone like butter and sent its two halves, grossly misshapen by the extreme heat, into a freefall towards the roiling sea below. 

_I told you it would work_ , Tony panted as Loki sagged down inside the suit and Thor ceased his onslaught. It had only been a few moments of exposure, but Loki’s skin tingled and burned, protesting with every movement. His entire body felt drained, weak. 

The HUD flashed a thousand shades of red. Warnings advertised multiple system failures: weapons, offline; long distance communications, offline; navigation, offline; flight, offline. The Mark VII had handled the onslaught of electricity, but just barely. At the height of the attack, the suit had been at nearly one-thousand percent capacity; the stored heat alone had melted wires and turned the suit’s plating red hot. 

Loki felt the repulsors in the suit’s boots sputter out, saw the emergency power kick in and immediately die. Gravity seized them, pulling them down towards the drone’s watery grave. He struggled weakly in the suit, now one hundred and fifty pounds of deadweight, trying to cling to something other than air. 

“Stark, I am not sure if you are courageous or an imbecile,” a voice said, muffled through the darkened helmet. Strong arms gripped the falling suit and held it fast. Loki laughed faintly, turning his head to catch sight of Thor’s blonde hair through the slits in the faceplate.

“But it worked, didn’t it? The word you’re looking for is ‘genius’.” 

Despite the concern in his eyes, Thor smiled. “Aye.” 

“Great work, Tony,” Steve praised through the comm. “We’re bringing the quinjet around to pick you both up.”

The god shifted in his brother’s embrace. “You were hit, Thor. Are you okay?”

“It was only a scratch,” the other responded. “I will live.”

_Awww, how cute is that? You’re actually concerned for him. Come to think of it, it wasn’t until the drone landed a shot that you decided to listen to me._ Tony taunted. 

_False. My only concern is that the wound would not impede his ability to fly before the rest of your team could reach us. He is the only thing between us and death, after all._ The quinjet hovered beneath them now, its back hatch open and ready to receive both gods. 

_Keep telling yourself that,_ the inventor said. _But in all honesty, Loki, you...you did good._

_I don’t require your approval._ Loki brushed the compliment off as they touched down inside the jet. The feeling of solid matter beneath his feet was a great relief, and he pushed away from Thor to sink down into one of the vacant seats at the back of the jet. He snapped the faceplate back, gulping in the fresh recycled air (he hadn’t realized just how much the fried circuits had affected atmosphere quality inside the suit), and leaned his head against the back wall. _Gods_ he was exhausted. 

_Regardless, you have it. So thank you._

The hatch closed behind them with a hiss and Thor took a seat across from Loki. There was talking, perhaps with Steve, but Loki couldn’t be bothered to concentrate on it. At the moment he just wanted to sleep. 

_I said thank you, jack ass._

Loki exhaled slowly, closed his eyes. This seemed to be yet another instance where Tony wouldn’t let him sleep until he had gotten the response that he wanted. It was a defining pattern in their relationship, it seemed. So the god obliged.

_You are welcome, Stark._

 


	8. A smashing chapter with some lovely writing, in which Loki and Tony discover a vital clue

 

Following the battle, things around the Tower changed. Most notably, Loki was out of the lab (though not voluntarily); Bruce demanded he stay in the Tower’s upper levels overnight at the very least. The god may have argued he was fine, if he so obviously hadn’t been (no sense in lying when you’ve already been caught).

The seiðr burns, for one, were absolutely appalling. The novice spells had left Loki with pale burns that were easily ignorable, but channeling the power of his brother had worsened them tenfold. The burns had reappeared with a vengeance, twisting around his hands and his arms in a brilliant, angry red, reaching all the way to his shoulders before fading out. 

“I have never seen lightning burns this bad,” Bruce remarked as he gingerly examined the burned skin. He’d heard about Loki’s heroic stupidity secondhand; the Latverian drone hadn’t warranted a “code green”, so to speak. Instead, he had stayed behind to prep the infirmary should any of the Avengers require help. “They’ll probably blister in the next few hours.” 

“Wonderful,” Loki said dryly, eying the angry skin with irritation. He sat on the exam table, naked from the waist up, staring at Tony’s reflection in the stainless steel cabinets fastened to the wall. His normally brilliant green eyes were muted to a softer brown by magic, allowing him to walk among the Avengers worry-free.

“You’re the one who thought it would be a good idea to turn yourself into a human conducting wire for the god of thunder,” Banner said lightly as he turned away, reaching for a tube of polysporin and a roll of gauze on the countertop. 

_Actually, no, it was most certainly_ not _my idea,_ Loki grumbled at Tony.

But Tony was not listening; his mind was already back in the lab where they’d set up shop. _What does this mean for our situation?_ he wondered.

_You are oddly blasé about the fact that nearly your entire upper body was seared._

_Believe me when I say, I’ve had worse. My skin is used to abuse._

Stark’s memories rose predictably to the occasion. 

** The basement in his childhood home. Playing with wires and batteries at eight years old. A homemade device that was hastily, and in this instance incorrectly, wired. Taking shortcuts and forgetting rubber gloves. Electrical burns on hands that didn’t heal for weeks. **

** A lab at MIT. A volatile mixture of chemicals. A mild explosion that sent a shelf of glass test tubes toppling down onto his head, resulting in fifteen stitches along his shoulders and an unforgivable A- in upper-level chemistry.  **

** A cave in Afghanistan. Welts rising along the skin of his back, from-- **

_Nope._ Tony said, cutting off the memory. _No, we are not going there today._ The recollection faded into a magically induced fog. Loki was impressed. 

_You’ve nearly mastered the spell I taught you,_ he said. 

_Practice makes perfect, and I get a lot of practice. Considering there’s not much else to do in here._

“This should help some,” Bruce interjected, tying off the last bandage on Loki’s arm. He stepped back to assess his handiwork. Loki blinked, moving away from his conversation with Tony, and eyed his counterfeit reflection in the mirror. Dr Banner had wrapped his arms, from wrist to bicep, in gauze. He must have coated the wrappings in polysporin while Loki was distracted, because the burning had subsided considerably. “They’ll keep you from inadvertently popping a blister and coming back to me with an infection.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Loki said, hopping off of the exam table. Bruce handed him a t-shirt; in an ironic twist, it was album art from Pink Floyd's _The Wall_.

_This is a cruel joke,_ he grumbled, struggling to get the shirt over his head without aggravating his freshly wrapped burns. Tony saw his opportunity and took it. 

_Leave this shirt alone!_

Loki closed his eyes and exhaled through his nose while Tony snickered. _Oh my gods, Stark._

_You walked right into that one,_ the inventor crowed. _You have no one to blame but yourself._

_Yes, well. To focus on the things that_ really _matter and answer your question, this means no more progress can be made in the magic-building department until your body heals. I hope the drone was worth it._

_The state of New York is intact, isn’t it? This is just a small set back. Besides, we’re so close already; we can just go body shopping in the meantime._ Tony said optimistically.

_Have you had any breakthroughs on that front?_ Loki asked, nodding to the doctor as he exited the infirmary and into the Tower proper. The upper levels of the Tower were strangely darker than the underground lab. A persistent cloud cover ensured that only the minimal amounts of daylight leaked through the panoramic windows and onto the city below, making for a very ominous late-August season. 

The god was struck by the mildest sense of déjà vu. It had been only months ago he’d stood in this very room, throwing the body he now inhabited through the large glass panes. 

_This entire situation is just coated in layers of irony,_ Tony spoke up. Loki had to agree. 

_Speaking of the other Avengers…_ Loki said with a frown, stepping around the refurbished meeting area, _Where are they?_

_Probably at a mission brief with SHIELD and the military._ As if on cue, the elevator at the far end of the room dinged, depositing the Avengers in question on the common room floor. They were out of their mission gear, Natasha in sweats and the rest in jeans. Even Thor had swapped his stately cape and armor for a Cardinals t-shirt. Loki froze like a deer in the headlights, remembering the last time he’d been in a the same room with them all. He was not looking for a repeat incident. 

Clint made a beeline for the mini fridge behind the wet bar, brushing past the frozen god. “Staying for dinner? We ordered Chinese takeout since our chef so kindly _injured_ himself.”

For a split second, Loki thought the archer referred to him, until Thor rounded the couch in the main space and sat down. “It is not my fault that my side wounds me so,” he answered with a smile, to which Clint rolled his eyes as he pulled Guinness from the fridge.

“You just don’t want to cook on the night you were assigned.” 

“I was craving pork fried rice anyway,” Bruce said from behind Loki, moving to sit beside Thor on the couch. Steve and Natasha walked over together, adding their own opinions on dinner. Loki felt so alien, so out of place among them. Tony was equally uncomfortable, wishing to be anywhere but among his friends. This still puzzled Loki.

_Someday you’re going to explain why you hate their company so much,_ the god said. 

_Maybe. Maybe not,_ was Tony’s only reply. 

“Chinese isn’t really my thing,” Loki said at last, earning him a few thinly-veiled looks of irritation. “I’ll go find something else to eat.”

Bruce eyed the god sternly over the frames of his glasses, “You’re not going back down to your lab. Overnight, that was our agreement.” 

“I didn’t say I was,” Loki answered defensively. _Besides, there’s only ramen down there anyway._ “Just that I’ll go….somewhere else. On this floor. Ask Jarvis if you need me.”

The team looked profoundly unhappy, but not surprised. “Do whatever you want, Tony,” Natasha said, accepting a beer from Clint. They turned away, effectively cutting him off from their conversations. Something inside Tony broke. 

_You did this to yourself, Stark,_ Loki reminded him as they left the room. 

_I know,_ he replied quietly. Tony led him to what he labeled as a “den”, but what was more of a very large, well-furnished cave. A large movie screen covered an entire wall, and a mini snack bar sat in the back corner. _The quietest place outside of my lab. And my bedroom, but I think spending the night there would just be weird…_

_Whatever you say._

“Tony!” Steve’s voice interrupted their thoughts. Loki turned to see the captain standing in the doorway of the den.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to catch you before you disappeared for another few weeks.” He closed the space between them, coming to stand just a foot away. “We need to talk--”

“About my hermit-like tendencies?” Loki waved the captain off. “Bruce tried that a week ago. There’s nothing you can say to make me socialize.”

Steve sighed, his face neutral buthis eyes were unhappy, giving him the look of a golden retriever that had been denied affection. “I get that. And though I wish you would change your mind, that’s not why we need to talk. You missed the debrief.”

“Because I was receiving medical care that I desperately needed.” Loki motioned with his mummified arms for emphasis. Steve’s mouth crooked up in the hint of a smile. 

“That doesn’t mean you get out of hearing Fury give us a play-by-play of the battle we just fought. I gave the whole thing to Jarvis. You can watch that on your big screen while you’re avoiding the rest of us.” 

Loki was about to agree, but Tony stopped him. _You will regret agreeing to watch that. Just ask him for the highlights._

_You wouldn’t I rather send him away?_

_Not this time. Not knowing exactly how the meeting on that tape will play out. Trust me, it is the most boring thing, and Steve will know if we don’t watch it. Jarvis’ll probably tell him, the traitor. This is easier._

“Perhaps you could...just give me the highlights,” Loki said aloud, trying not to look too annoyed. “What did our esteemed Director Fury have to say?” 

That seemed to be exactly the answer Steve wanted to hear, and all too eagerly launched into a detailed rundown of the meeting. _This was a ploy so we would talk, I know it,_ the god observed. _Is he so desperate to keep you out of hiding?_

Tony wanted to grin. _If so, he’s finally learning._

According to Steve, the Latverian government denied the use of vibranium when confronted by SHIELD, citing experimental shielding that generated false readings to give the appearance of vibranium. Regardless, tensions in the UN were still running high after Latveria’s “accidental” misfire. A US Navy vessel had been dispatched to recover what remained of the drone, to put the dispute at rest. The Latverian representatives objected, leading to what looked to be a very long argument disguised as negotiations. Thankfully, the Avengers had not been required to stick around for that. 

“We made sure, though, to give all the credit to you,” Steve continued, something mischievous glinting in his eye. “It was your idea, and your execution of that idea, that saved the day. It’ll be front page news tomorrow.”

_Oh no,_ Tony finally pieced together where Steve was going. Loki wasn’t too far behind, and a feeling of dread wormed its way into his stomach.

“This means you will _definitely_ be attending tomorrow’s charity banquet, of course” Steve finished. “We can’t _not_ have the hero of the day present. And, seeing as Bruce has banned you from your lab for the time being, we won’t be keeping you from anything important.”

The god rolled his eyes skyward, searching for a way out. 

_It won’t be_ that _bad,_ Tony concluded. 

_So now you_ want _to appear publicly? What happened to your self-induced exile?_

_Are you kidding me? I love appearing publicly. Everything is superficial and no one cares if you lie through your teeth. It’s the living-with-teammates and talking-about-things-other-than-the-weather that sends me underground. I was just worried about losing precious time before, but we’ve already given ourselves another week of recovery. And besides, this would be a much more enjoyable way to kill time than eating ramen and arguing._

Steve was eyeing him expectantly; Loki got the feeling he’d waited too long to reply. 

_I am bored, dammit. And I could use a change of scenery._

“I will reconsider my attendance,” Loki said aloud, while telling himself he wasn’t doing this for Tony’s benefit. The god could use some fresh air as well. 

Steve smiled as though he’d won some impossible battle. “That’s great! We’ll see you there.”

_Will I have to socialize?_ Loki dreaded mingling with the Avengers; the few moments he’d hesitated in the common room were agonizing enough. Tony waved him off. 

_Probably not. Cap’s just happy that I’m talking full sentences to him again. All you have to do is show up and look pretty. And in the meantime, there’s a big screen TV and three whole Star Wars movies I have yet to show you. Publicly I’m supposed to say they were awful, but in reality I think you’ll get a kick out of the whole Jedi Order._

Loki watched as Steve retreated out of the den, back to where the other Avengers had congregated. The smell of chow mein and prawns wafted through the door; dinner had arrive. _That sounds perfect._

 

* * *

 

It wasn't twenty-four hours later that a gleaming red Mclaren roared to a stop outside of New York’s premier event center, met by a crowd of reporters and flash bulbs. Loki’s smile was wide and charismatic (and not nearly as forced as he had anticipated) as he stepped from the flashy car, all Stark charm and sophistication. 

_That was some of the worst driving I've ever experienced,_ Tony jabbed from his spot in the back of Loki's mind, just barely noticeable over the noise of the paparazzi. To the world, he was a welcome sight on the red carpet (rumors spread when you’re out of the limelight). To the Avengers, who had arrived moments before in a gleaming stretch limo, it was just a relief to see him outside of the lab. 

_Your motor vehicles leave much to be desired when it comes to simplicity. I still do not comprehend the need for a stick shift_ , the god shot back, tossing the Mclaren’s keys to a young valet.

His excuse was met with a sarcastic scoff. _Don't blame my baby because of your incompetence._

_Don't blame me for the fault of your auto manufacturers,_ Loki answered. He expected a snarky reply from the inventor, but Tony was suddenly not listening. Loki's appearance had met with an increase in volume from the gathered crowd of reporters and photographers. The sound of the inventor's name, shouted at them from the crowd, had drawn Tony's attention away. Despite himself, Loki basked in the attention that wasn't truly his, while the inventor became...not sad, not quite. But suddenly the fire had gone from him. He retreated to the back of their mind, cloaked in melancholy.  

_If I have my way, this life will be yours once more,_ the god said in an attempt to comfort his headmate. 

"Mr Stark, over here!"

"Can you tell Vanity Fair who you're wearing tonight, Mr Stark?"

"How did you know that maneuver with Thor's lightning would work?"

"Mr Stark, was this threat anything similar to the invasion of New York?"

"Do you have any plans to prevent further attacks?"

Though Loki didn't respond (if Stark's memory served him, it wasn't unusual to ignore the questions), he found the crowd's energy contagious, invigorating. It was an excitement, very nearly an adoration, that the god had not felt since...ever. All his life he'd been the one trailing behind the Golden Son, witnessing the excitement, but never a part of it. Even as Asgard's rightful king, when Loki had deserved their validation, had _craved_ it, it had never been given. He understood why Tony loved the public’s eye.

It was much calmer inside the event center. Though many reporters had tried to get a statement as he walked, with Loki's still very-limited knowledge of Earth's current events, he thought it best to opt out. There was only so much lying you could do before everyone realized you knew nothing about the rising tensions in the Middle East or the state of the worldwide stock exchange. 

The event center proper was modestly decorated, nothing like Loki expected a soirée in the Avenger's honor to be (but then, he was accustomed to royal Aesir extravagance; Loki had to wonder if his attending brother was as unimpressed by the event as he). Tony's eye was, unsurprisingly, drawn to the sparkling marble counter at the back of the room, and the shelves of watery Midgardian alcohol behind it.

_Maybe they have a bottle of 50 year old single malt scotch whiskey,_ the god joked. 

_You shut your tasteless mouth,_ Tony said in a light tone, a far cry from the biting sarcasm of their first days together. Come to think of it, there hadn't been any vitriol in his words since they'd almost crashed into the New York harbour yesterday morning. 

_Humans are adaptable,_ was the inventor's response. _Now get over to the bar and order me a bourbon on the rocks. Your taste in alcohol--that is, no alcohol--is killing me._

Loki indulged the inventor, partly because, now that the crowds of fans and paparazzi were gone, he wasn't entirely sure what to do with himself. The room was filled with men and women and politicians and privileged reporters dressed in varying shades of black ( _Everyone always dresses for a funeral for charity banquets; don't question it,_ Stark supplied), and all manner of people who Loki did not care about. It was possible that among them were non-humans whose bodies he might not mind stealing, but from an initial glance it seemed highly unlikely there was anyone worth his time among New York's top brass. 

"Bourbon on the rocks," he told the pretty bartender, who winked at him as she prepared his drink. The god smiled in response. 

_Don't even think about it,_ Tony warned when he saw. Loki huffed a small laugh. 

_Worry not, Stark. She is not my type,_ he assured the inventor, as a smartly dressed man with styled blond hair and glasses slid up beside him at the bar. _Him, however..._

_No._

_Oh, Stark, I thought you'd be more open-minded,_ Loki chided. Tony offered the mental equivalent of rolling his eyes. 

_You can pick any man in this room. Pick Steve, if you must. I'm sure he's great in bed. But not him._

Loki was about to ask, _Why not?_ , but the man chose that moment to turn around. Instantly his face split into the biggest shit-eating grin the god had ever seen. 

"Tony! Oh man, it's great to see you again," the man said, reaching out and grabbing Loki's hand without hesitation. "How have you been, man?"

_Stark, who is this man_. It was less of a question and more a demand. Loki, with great difficulty, extricated himself from the blond's handshake. 

_Justin Hammer._ The name sounded sour on Tony's tongue. Immediately, a multitude of recollections jumped to the forefront of their mind.

** Science convention in Istanbul. Justin Hammer following Stark everywhere. Interrupting him at every turn. Generally being a soggy pain in the ass and ruining every hookup that might have developed. **

** Movie premiere in Britain. Justin Hammer throwing a hand over Stark's shoulder on the red carpet. Talking nonstop. Getting piss drunk off of champagne at the after party. Accidentally offering a spur-of-the-moment weapon's demonstration to one-up Stark's mention of the Jericho missile that ended in the totaling of Stark's favorite Audi.  **

** Stark Expo. Rhodey in a suit. Justin Hammer surrounded by drones. Cheering crowds turning to screaming masses. Gun fire and missiles. Flames. Whiplash. Being arrested for being an insufferable jagweed (and also for a number of felonies).  **

_There's more if you need it,_ Tony offered. 

_I've seen enough,_ Loki assured the inventor as the bartender returned with his bourbon. To Hammer, he said, without looking up: "Shouldn't you be in prison?" 

Hammer laughed louder than the remark called for, clapping a hand on Loki's shoulder. "Well, it turns out, my attorney found a few "holes" in the jury's verdict, if you know what I mean. We appealed and I came out on top."

_He means he paid off the jury._

_I did gather that, thank you._

"God bless America's court system, am I right?" Hammer winked at Loki and nudged him with his elbow, prompting Loki to feign a smile in response (though the face he made more closely resembled a reaction to severe indigestion than an actual smile). 

"So anyway, man, what have you been up to since your _secretary_ so ungraciously threw me in jail?" He laughed. Stark's blood boiled when Hammer mentioned Pepper, and Loki was growing annoyed with the man's whining voice. “I’m kidding, just joshing with you. But seriously. Have you created any new weapon designs for me to improve? Oh, man, I'm just joking, you'll always be the best at that. Hey, barkeep, give me one of what my good friend Tony is having." Hammer finally paused for air when the bartender returned with an identical bourbon on the rocks for him. 

_Would you be at all opposed if I decided to murder this man?_

_Once you have a body that isn't mine, go right ahead._

"Don't you have someone else to pester?" Loki asked, taking advantage of the pause. Hammer swallowed a sip of bourbon and fell back onto his highly irritating fake laugh. 

"See, Tony, that's what I missed about you, your sense of humor."

_Have I said something funny, Stark? Tell me where the joke is so I can shut him up._

_Hammer_ is _the joke._

And then Loki had an idea. His face split into a feral grin. "Oh, Justin, I haven't even started on the good jokes."

Hammer's brows knit together in confusion, and he laughed nervously. "What?"

The god brought his bourbon to his lips. "You'll see. But tell me, Justin, did they treat you well in prison?"

And just like that, Hammer's unease passed as he launched into a story on the horrors of prison. 

_Don't encourage him._

_Relax, Stark, I have a_ plan _. This night will not go to waste after all._  

As Hammer talked, Loki focused on the ice cubes floating in the other man's tumbler, fingers twisting, unseen, below the counter. He recited the words he had memorized in his head, repeating them over and over to strengthen the spell. All he needed was for Hammer to lift the glass, take a sip...

"--and the cook didn't even know what _blanquette de veau_ was! It's like he was raised in a barn or something," finally Hammer paused a second time, shaking his head, and took a drink from his glass. Loki seized the opportunity, clenching his fingers into a tight fist. He felt the drain of magic (more acutely than usual, thanks to the vicious burns hidden beneath his sleeves) as the spell released. 

Not a moment later, Hammer's face went pale. He jerked away from his glass, coughing and sputtering. And from his mouth fell two of the biggest slugs Loki had been able to conjure. The other man looked both nauseated and horrified as he stared at the gastropods writhing in top-notch bourbon at his feet. Loki tilted his head and gave an approving nod.

"It looks like the _hors d'oeuvres_ found their way into the bartender's stock," he commented. Hammer swallowed hard. "Are you feeling alright, Justin? You're looking a bit green."

"I...I have to use the facilities." Hammer bolted, head down, for the exit. 

Tony burst into laughter. _Oh man. Oh man, did you see his face?_ he gasped. _Do that again. No, wait. You can do better. Do something better._ Loki waved his hand, vanishing the slugs, and turned back to the bar. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Hammer hastening through the crowd, now just beneath a chandelier. 

_How about this?_ Loki snapped his fingers, focusing as hard as he could on the flickering bulbs in the light fixture. With a loud _pop!_ they all shattered, showering sparks on the crowd below. Patrons shrieked as they scuttled out of the way, but Hammer kept a straight path through the falling glass. A spark, harmless under normal circumstances, alighted in his hair. The god blew gently in the other man's direction, and with another wave of magic, it burst into flames atop his head. With a shout, Hammer flailed to put out the growing blaze. In the end, three people splashed him with their champagne before a sensible fellow threw his sport coat over Hammer's head to snuff the blaze. 

Tony was very nearly sobbing with laughter. _I don’t think you have no idea just how much seeing Justin Hammer_ on fire _means to me._

_Oh, I have an idea,_ Loki said with a smirk, turning back to his bourbon (for watered down Midgardian fare, it wasn't all that terrible). _Is there anyone else I need to set alight? Strictly for endurance exercises, of course._

_I can think of a few dozen._ Tony immediately conjured a list of people. 

_Is there a reason Agent Barton is on this list?_

_He washed all my white underwear with a red shirt of Nat's. I demand retribution._

_Certainly._

Loki downed the rest of the bourbon and vacated his spot at the bar, wondering through the crowd until he caught sight of a smartly dressed Clint Barton, dancing (surprisingly well) with Natasha.

_Since when can he waltz?_ Tony mused. 

_He took a dance class a few years ago in preparation for an undercover assignment._

_And you know this how...?_

_Unfortunately, you are not the first person to be forced to share your thoughts with me._

That killed the mood. Tony quickly backtracked. _Maybe we could prank Clint later. There are a number of journalists I'd love to mess with instead._

Loki thinned his lips, tearing his eyes away from Barton and Romanov. _Yes. Someone else, perhaps._

_There’s this reporter, her name is Christine Everhart…_

And so the night went on. Occasionally someone would ask for a photo, or a dance, or a quote. Tony told Loki what to say, and he repeated it. But for the most part, they were left alone, and Loki took every opportunity to cause mischief. Small things, here and there. He changed the programming on the courtesy TVs to something X rated, enchanted a number of the reporter’s cameras to combust when the shutter button was pressed, and turned the rocks in the table decorations into an equal amount of dead and live cockroaches. The pranks weren’t his usual caliber, but after only an hour he was feeling the drain on his magic, and the seiðr burns on his arms were aching. Fatigue creeped into his limbs. The watered down antics were good enough for tonight. 

As the evening drew to a close, Loki set his sights on one last target. It just wouldn’t be right to not prank his brother. Thor was dressed smartly in a red suit that would have looked absurd on any who wasn’t a literal god, and Jane Foster, whom Loki had only interacted with in passing, was dwarfed beside him in a silver gown. They chatted idly in the corner of the room, taking a break from the crowd. A looming glass sculpture stood behind them, a perfect target for the god’s final joke. Loki positioned himself, reached for his magic, and--

"I know who you truly are, Liesmith," a voice whispered in Loki's ear, cold and sinister. The god jumped despite himself, glancing wildly around to find the source of the voice. He caught the eye of a plain looking man in a grey suit, who smiled faintly at him before disappearing in the direction of the balcony. His heart thudded in his chest, prank forgotten.

_Who the hell was that and why does he know who you are?_ Tony demanded, equally shaken. Loki shook his head. 

_Perhaps I became too reckless. I doubt he’s here on friendly terms…_

The god tucked his head and followed the man's path, wandering through mindless chatter in the direction that the other had gone. He swiped a shrimp skewer from a waitress’s tray as he passed, removing the shellfish with deft hands and depositing them in a trash bin; it wouldn’t do to go to a confrontation unarmed. With a few murmured words, Loki strengthened the bamboo skewer with an enchantment and slid it up his sleeve as he stepped out into the crisp air of the balcony. His eyes scanned the terrace, searching for the nondescript man who had led him out here. 

He wasn’t hard to find, as he was the only other person out in the chilly air. The stranger stood at the far end of the balcony, leaning against the railing with his back to the party. The New York Bay stretched before him, the lights of the city playing upon the subtly breaking waves as party yachts glided like ghosts over the water. Loki approached the man from behind, hyper aware of his surroundings (who knew if the man came alone?) and rested his elbows on the rail beside him. 

“And so, we finally meet, Loki,” the man said without turning. “We’ve all heard a lot about you; you were a thorn in our master’s side for quite a while.”

“I hope I didn’t cause you too much trouble,” Loki replied, his voice dry. “Did he send you to make sure I was truly dead?”

The other man laughed. “Oh no, no no no, your death convinced him. And we’ve been on Midgard for some time, my family and I. Serving him. Feeding him what information we can glean. It’s the Tesseract he’s after, and he called on us to fulfill the mission that you so magnificently botched.”

**New York. Stark Tower. Waiting impatiently for the first sign of the Avengers. Waiting to activate the Tesseract until just the right moment. Giving his opposition as much time as he dared. Sweaty palms and a racing heart. Would the beast know? Would he realize the Trickster’s plot? Would his treachery be caught yet again? Would he be ripped down, torn apart and pieced back together again? **

“It was magnificent, wasn’t it?” Loki mused, the fingers on his right hand twitching into a fist. The fortified bamboo skewer rubbed invitingly against the skin of his wrist. 

_Hold on,_ Tony advised, listening intently to what the other man was saying. _We need to know more._

“Thanos wasn’t pleased in the slightest. He considered you lucky, that Asgard ended your life before he could apprehend you. He had such plans for you…” The man turned around, leaning his back against the railing, and laced his fingers over his chest. “But I didn’t believe you were so lucky, oh no. Because you slipped up, my friend. Your brilliant plan to escape was almost flawless. _Almost_.”

“Well, obviously, seeing as you found me,” the god answered. “Tell me, where did I go wrong?” The other man grinned and reached into the pocket of his plain grey sport jacket. From it he withdrew a shimmering metal spike, about seven centimeters in length and less than half a centimeter in diameter. Very fine, hairlike barbs jutted from the main shaft of the device, giving it the appearance of a black metal tooth. Loki’s blood nearly froze in his veins; he recognized the device. And not just the general shape, but this _exact_ device. The back of his neck ached in memory. Tony, however, was confused, flipping through memories and trying to find a match. 

_What? What is it?_

“Your neural implant,” the other man purred before Loki could answer, twisting the black spike between his fingers. “Adapted from Chitauri technology specifically for you. A one of a kind collar for Thanos’s prized pet.”

Loki remembered it well. The implant was an insidious invention, sitting at the base of the skull, designed to highjack the wearer’s sensory systems; sight, sound, touch. Whoever controlled the implant could make the wearer see, hear, and feel whatever they wanted. It served its purpose on the battlefield, as a way to deliver orders in an efficient manner. But it was also used as punishment, forcing the wearer to experience pain without actually physically damaging them. And, should the wearer decide they had better things to do than obey orders, it acted as an executioner’s axe, reducing the wearer’s central nervous system to mush. 

It was a weakness that the Avengers had unknowingly exploited during the Battle of New York; when Stark’s giftwrapped nuclear device had impacted with the Chitauri command center, it had short circuited the implant of every Chitauri soldier in the invasion force. Their greatest strength had been turned against them.

But Loki had never been part of a grand army, had never been a soldier who required orders. The neural implant that Thanos had fitted him with served the purpose of keeping the god in check--it didn’t do to have the sorcerer who served you constantly trying to usurp your power. So the beast had shackled Loki, and Loki had been powerless against the device. 

“Who are you?” Loki said bluntly, gripping the railing so hard his knuckles turned white. His heart pounded in his ears, and his breaths came fast and shallow. He wanted nothing more than to reach for the man, rip the smug smile right off his face, rend flesh and bone and tear the arrogant bastard to pieces for daring to think he could blackmail a god. 

_You don’t see the big picture, though,_ Tony thought with an inappropriate amount of excitement. 

_And that is?_

_That implant could only come from one place. It was made for you, right? So it had to come from_ you _._ Tony’s mind was whirling. _He found you. Or your body, at least._

And, rattled as Loki was by the reappearance of one of his worst memories, Stark was on to something. A problem they hadn’t yet addressed was finding him suitable housing. If his body was out there, waiting for him, it could resolve their shared problem in one fell swoop. They just needed to know the _location_ of his body.

The man tucked the implant back into his pocket and sighed.

“My name is Lajek. My brothers and sisters and I have lived on this planet for years in the service of Thanos.”

“Lajek…” Loki rolled the name around on his tongue. His eyes narrowed when he placed the culture it had originated form. “You are a Skrull.” For Tony’s benefit, Loki dragged up the image of a race of green-skinned, pointy-eared aliens. Tony was confused. 

_But he looks human._

_They also shapeshift._

_How convenient._

Lajek nodded in affirmation. “Years ago, my people were at war with the Kree--I’m sure you’ve heard of our conflicts.” Again, to help Tony follow the conversation, Loki supplied a pair of blue-skinned aliens from memory. Lajek continued.“Both sides were decimated in the war, and our empress was killed in one of their attacks. For a while our people were scattered, living in anarchy. My family sought stability, and Thanos offered it if only we worked for him. Our skill set proved invaluable for reconnaissance. We were stationed on this planet, and fitted with implants not unlike yours. They are very good at ensuring loyalty.”

“I noticed,” Loki said. “Keep talking.” 

“We were support for the New York invasion. It was my family that was responsible for the lack of Earthly military support in the battle. It was us who secured the Tesseract’s location, who made it possible for you to even hijack its properties. We laid the groundwork for the plan, and _you_ mucked it up.”

“On purpose, I’m sure you gathered.”

“Oh, yes. Thanos knew you had double crossed him once again, hence his anger when you were executed. He wanted to skin you himself.” Lajek narrowed his eyes. “I, however, did not believe you to be dead. I studied the data from your implant. At the time of your death, before your vitals had even ceased, your consciousness was gone. The sensory nodes were the first to go dark. No one thought anything of it. But I, I knew your tricks. I knew your magic. I suspected you’d found a way to survive your execution. Thanos was arrogant in his technology, but surely a being who can betray the Mad Titan not once, but _twice_ , is capable of outsmarting a mere implant. 

“And so I looked. I found your body, discarded unceremoniously on this world, and I knew you weren’t dead. It was hard, thinking like you. But I thought to myself, _He wants power. He wants influence_. And then came the incident with Latveria’s drone, and you all but revealed yourself. You saved this world yet again, but you made a mistake with that whole ‘Let a God of Thunder electrocute me’ move. No mere mortal could withstand such power. And I knew I’d found you.”

It was a struggle for Loki to keep his breathing even, to keep his face emotionless. Odin had sentenced him to a worse fate than death. There would be no escaping Thanos this time. 

“And what do you plan to do with this information?” Loki said with forced calm in his voice. “If you were just wanting to turn me over to Thanos, why warn me?” 

“Because,” Lajek said, leaning forward. “Like most of his peons, I want out of our deal. I _despise_ him, and the harsh fist he controls us with. Crawling to him on our bellies, like worms in the mud, was a mistake to begin with. And I want out. I want _you_ to help me to escape.”

Loki couldn’t help it; he laughed outright. It was bitter, cold-edged laughter. His and Tony’s memories of the Void swirled together. “Oh, but there’s no escape, my friend. You yourself proved that. It took my death, albeit a rather staged death, to keep the Mad Titan off my tail. And still here you are, threatening to reveal me. Hardly a true escape at all. Don’t you know the same would happen to you? If I feared you enough to help, what good would it do? There’s always someone who doesn’t trust the facts, who looks where they shouldn’t. There is no hiding from Thanos. The only escape is death, my friend. True death.”

Lajek’s face twisted in anger. “So you will not help me?”

Loki sagged against the railing, letting his head fall back to gaze at the dim stars above. “Oh no, I did not say that. You want my help to escape? I offer it. But not as you would want it. Certainly not.”

The Skrull narrowed his eyes, realizing where Loki’s mind was headed. He started to move sensibly away from the god, but the snake was too fast for the cornered rat. In a flash Loki retrieved the enchanted bamboo skewer from his sleeve, pulled Lajek close to his body, and sank the skewer into the alien’s flesh. He angled it upward, piercing through muscle to puncture the man’s heart. The Skrull gasped in pain as his green blood flowed down the god’s arm. 

“I give you your freedom,” Loki whispered into Lajek’s ear, before hurling him over the railing into the bay. He listened for the splash of the Skrull’s body hitting the water before turning away. 

Tony was in mild shock. _You killed him._

_Of course I did. I couldn’t let him go running back to Thanos._

_What if someone saw?_

Loki surveyed the deserted balcony. _I doubt he’ll be missed._

_What about your body? You couldn’t have_ at least _asked him where to find it?_

Finally, a pressing concern. Loki frowned as he removed the jade pocket square from his breast pocket. _My body being on Midgard raises other questions. A solution to our problem, yes; but why is it here? Why not on Asgard?_

_I don’t know. Maybe you’re just that much of a disgrace? It is kind of ironic to leave you here._

_No, no, that’s not it._ Loki’s mind was working. There was more to the puzzle. _Even the harshest of criminals is cremated upon his death. Why a burial?_ He stepped away from the railing, wiping the Skrull’s blood off of his hand as he went. 

It made no sense. If Odin had simply been discarding him here, content to keep his son alive without passing judgement, why offer a way out? Why put all the elements needed to escape in reach? 

“Don't do this on your own,”Frigga’s voice came back to Loki. And, once again, the pieces clicked into place. 

“My second chance,” the god said aloud, freezing mid step. 

_Your what?_

Loki sank down on the nearest bench, holding the bloodied pocket square in his hands. _When Thor first came to Midgard, it was because he had foolishly ignited a war between Asgard and our neighbors, the frost giants of Jotunheim. He was stripped of Mjolnir and marooned here._

_I read SHIELD’s report. And?_

_And, in the end, Thor’s only punishment for nearly slaughtering an innocent race was a week-long stay in the middle of the desert. He realized there was more to being king than just killing people._

_I feel like there’s more to the story…_ Tony said, reaching for Loki’s memories. The god slammed a wall down in his path. Some memories were best left buried. 

_The point of this is, Thor started a war and got a slap on the hand. My mistakes earned me a year of enslavement and my own execution._

_I_ know _there is more to the story than that,_ Tony grumbled. 

_But I was wrong._ Loki stared at the pocket square in his hand. His breathing was labored, but not out of fear or anger this time. _It wasn’t an execution. If I wanted to right my wrongs, I needed to have the freedom to do so. Of course death was the only way to work around the neural implant. This is a chance to fix my mistake._

_Which mistake is that, exactly?_

Loki huffed in irritation. _Thanos. I gave him a foothold here. Lajek was not snooping around looking just for me._

_His family_ is _still after the Tesseract._

_And on Thanos’s orders._

_You think Odin wanted you to stop it?_

_With your help, I assume. He_ did _force us together._

_When this is all over and you give my body back, I would love to give the All Father a piece of my mind. I didn’t consent to this._

A faint smile twitched Loki’s lip upwards. _Get in line_. He pushed himself off the bench, crumpling the bloody kerchief and shoving it in his pocket. _But until then, we’ve got work to do._

 


	9. The Undead and the Dying

The hunt for Loki’s body began immediately. They left the party quietly, with none of the flair Stark was famous for. That’s not to say there wasn’t any flair at all, but it was mostly Loki grinding the Mclaren’s gears as he turned out of the parking lot, to Tony’s absolute horror.

_My baby,_ he whimpered. 

_If you really wanted to, Stark, you could rebuild this car from the ground up._

_Just because I_ can _do something doesn’t mean I_ want _to do it. Take my old cellphone, for instance._

Loki chuckled, and floored the car in response. Regardless of his abominable driving, they made it home in one piece and immediately retreated to the sanctuary of Stark’s lab. The seiðr burns were still very red, but Bruce’s twenty-four-hour ban on his lab time was up. Jarvis himself couldn’t keep them away. 

_Okay,_ Tony said, mentally rubbing his hands together as the lab lit up around them. _This should be easy. Asgardian vitals are different than human, I take it. Shouldn’t be too difficult to locate the alien if we know what we’re looking for._

_We aren’t looking for vitals, Stark._ Loki said slowly. _Have we forgotten the part about my very literal death?_

The inventor processed this. _But that was symbolic, right? You can’t_ actually _be dead._

Loki’s memory flashed back to the very, very sharp executioner’s axe. _Fairly certain I’m dead. If my body lived, Lajek wouldn’t have left it. Or, if it was alive, it’s dead now. The neural implant isn’t supposed to be removed if the subject is still alive. It would have detonated._

_Well, that’s great. This is just a dead end._ Tony said bitterly. _No pun intended._ Loki shook his head and pulled himself closer to the keyboard. 

_Magic, Stark._

_Of course! So you’re just going to_ resurrect _your dead corpse._ Tony said sarcastically.

Loki hummed in acknowledgement. _Necromancy is not as hard as it sounds. I’ve done it countless times before._

_You...have raised the dead._ Tony wasn’t sure what to make of this. _Like, zombies._

_Raising the flesh is easy. Giving consciousness to the flesh is entirely different._ The god was eyeing the computer before him, not quite sure where to begin the search. _Would you mind focusing?_

_I’m still stuck on the fact that you’ve literally_ raised _the_ dead _._ Stark’s words brought up images of slack-jawed, upright corpses, staggering brainlessly along. 

_Not too far off, actually. Now, about_ finding _it--_

_So you’re going to turn your body into a zombie._

_I might,_ Loki snapped, irritated now, _if I could_ find it _._

_Right, right, okay,_ Tony relented. _But we_ will _revisit this later._

_Naturally._

_So, if we don’t have your vitals to go off of...I have no idea. I have access to every satellite and sensor in the northern hemisphere, but you’ve got to give them something to look for._

_Magic, remember?_ Loki reminded the inventor, finger tapping on the cluttered desk. He eyed a small piece of scrap metal, no bigger than a stone. A very particular stone, in fact.

_It is energy, so it should have an energy signature that we could track,_ Tony mused. _But the problem lies in not knowing what that energy signature is. It could be anything. Any frequency._

Loki picked up the scrap metal, twisting it between his fingers thoughtfully. _What if I were able to recreate the exact frequency we are seeking?_

_I take it you have an idea?_

In response, the god reached for his body’s magic stores and blew gently on the scrap’s surface. The seiðr burns on his arms, though healing quickly, still ached. A dull green glow rose from the metal. 

_My mother gave me something before my execution._ Loki explained. _A runestone that I had enchanted as a child._ Eihwaz _. If I am correct, and I have been granted a second chance, I would bet that I was buried with it._

_How nice of them to leave you a trail._

Loki stood up from the desk, taking the enchanted metal with him. _This is the very same enchantment placed upon Eihwaz. We can track whatever energy it emanates; it will lead us to Eihwaz, and very likely, my burial._

_That’d do it,_ Tony affirmed. He walked Loki through calibrating Jarvis’s sensors, taking the proper readings of the scrap metal, accessing the necessary satellites for a worldwide geographical scan, all with a practiced ease. 

_You’ve done this before._

_Once or twice. Setting all these systems up is the easy part. It’s the waiting that kills me._

Loki eyed the inching progress bar in the lower corner of the main screen. _How long will we be waiting?_

_A while,_ Tony answered. _Global scans are a pain. Even technology has its limits._

The god crossed his arms and sank into a sitting position before the screen. _I am patient._

_Well I’m not,_ Tony said. _At least let us watch something._

_Is there more Star Wars?_

_No, but there are--_

_Then I am not interested._ Loki said dismissively. He doubted very much that any film Tony could show him could hold a candle to the space opera. _But if you’re so desperate to fill the silence, I have an idea._

_Which is…?_

_I have told you stories._ Loki recalled his attempt to sway Stark to his side in their first week together. _I have shown you things._

_Is that what you want?_ Tony asked. _A story?_

_One story in particular, actually,_ the god elaborated, sinking into the swivel chair before Jarvis’ screens. _Tell me about Afghanistan._ Tony recoiled viscerally from the word, and their shared body responded. Stomach twisting, throat closing, head pounding. The god steeled himself against the reaction, determined to get what he requested. _Tell me how you survived._

_Why do you want to know that?_ The inventor asked, trying very hard to get his emotions under control. In the years since his imprisonment, he had grown very good at hiding his reaction externally. Internally, however, it was an entirely different story. Loki looked down at the messy, disorganized desk before him, pushing a large ball bearing around with the tip of his finger. 

_Because you triumphed where I failed. I_ gave in _to Thanos. I agreed to conquer Earth. But_ you _, you escaped without compromise. Tell me_ how _._

Tony was silent, processing this. Truthfully, it was a miracle he’d gotten out of the caves with his life. There were times, too numerous to count, where he had considered giving up Jericho, if only to make the pain go away. There had been only one thing, one constant in the caves, that kept him strong. _It’s because I wasn’t alone._

Loki blinked, finger poised above the desk. _What?_

_In the caves. I wasn’t alone. There was another prisoner there._ And here the inventor paused, unwilling to go on. He had spoken of his imprisonment only with a select few individuals--namely, Pepper and Rhodey. And even then, he had left out many details, had downplayed what went on in that infernal cage of rock and water. They knew it, perhaps saw it in his eyes, the way his fingers twitched at his sides, or the way he grew a sudden interest in whatever furniture he happened to be near. They let it slide, never pushed the issue. As a result, Tony Stark hadn’t spoken the prisoner’s name since the day he escaped. As if not speaking would somehow make what happened less real. 

The god didn’t push the issue, either, didn’t urge the inventor onward with words. He knew all too well of the need to hold some secrets close. Instead he waited, focused on the ball bearing before him, gave Tony time to collect his thoughts. He could always take what he wanted by force, and the inventor knew this. The waiting was merely a courtesy. Tony appreciated it all the same. 

If ever someone had told Tony that he would eventually recount, in depth, his trials in Afghanistan, he might have believed them. He always knew he’d unload that baggage when the time was right. But if they had said that he would consider telling this story, the darkest chapter in his recent past, to the homicidal god who had nearly leveled New York, he might have punched them. Yet here he was, realizing that he and this god shared something in common, and that, of all the people on this planet, this god could not only sympathise, but _understand_. If ever retelling the tale of his imprisonment felt right, it was now. 

 

* * *

 

Yinsen, was his name. Ho Yinsen. His had been the first face Tony really remembered seeing after his own missile had exploded in his face. Somehow, despite the weeks Yinsen had spent in captivity, and the horrors he’d suffered at the hands of their captors, he managed to put on a good face for Tony’s sake. 

In Tony’s first weeks there, it had been a nonstop cycle of sleep, eat, and listen to the demands of the Ten Rings. Those demands always ended in unpleasantness, whether it was wrapping his face in cloth and pouring water over his head, stripping his shirt from his back and spelling out their requests in lashes on his back, or simply pummeling his body with fists, feet, the stocks of guns that Tony himself had designed. When they had had their fill of physical abuse, the terrorists dragged him limply back to the chamber he shared with Yinsen. And while Tony shivered, tried to hold back the sobs in his chest, curled inwards on himself in an attempt to disappear, the other man would put an arm around his shoulders and gently guide him to the cot. 

In place of prescription painkillers, the doctor gave Tony willow bark to chew on (though Tony never figured out where he got it). Yinsen cleaned whatever wounds the inventor had sustained, hung a jacket about his shoulders, and never said a word when Tony vomited or succumbed to other equally undignifying realities of being tortured. 

At first, Tony had no real hope of escape, no direction or plan. It seemed strange, but even years after his father’s death, Howard was still there making him feel small--only this time, his harsh words didn’t spur Tony onward, give him the desire to prove his old man wrong. Rather, they served as nails in Tony’s increasingly-more-real coffin.

“Stark men are made of iron,” Howard Stark would snarl, standing over his son while Tony lay feverish on the filthy cot. “How did you ever get so weak?”

Tony pulled his jacket tighter, wincing as the skin in his chest separated from the sutures that held Yinsen’s electromagnet in place. 

“I tried,” he croaked, searching his father’s face for an ounce of sympathy, of understanding. He saw only the cold, uncaring lines that he’d grown up with. 

“And you failed,” Howard spit. “Pathetic.”

Tony lost track of time in those caves. He couldn’t say how many days, or weeks, he’d spent wallowing in that chamber while Yinsen cared for him tirelessly. But it didn’t take long to reach his breaking point. 

The Ten Rings came once again, hauled red and sweating Tony out of the cave to the protests of his caretaker. They beat Tony again, pushing his head into the water and almost didn’t bring him up. 

“Tell me about Jericho,” their leader asked through an interpreter, kneeling by Tony’s side when he was finally allowed to surface. He brought one hand under the inventor’s chin, lifted his head so that their eyes met. “Give us what we want and your pain will stop.”

For a split second Tony considered giving in, but instead he coughed up a mouthful of water and spit it in the other man’s face. His insolence earned him a debilitating punch to the ribs and the inventor collapsed, coughing and gasping for breath. They dragged him back to his chamber, as they had done many times before. But this time, Tony didn’t rebound. 

He lay on the hard rock, feeling it leech the heat from his body as the door swung shut. All at once, the feelings of hopelessness he hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge previously overwhelmed him, and before he knew it he was sobbing into the floor, inhaling great, painful lungfuls of air. And Tony knew, if they asked him again, he would give them Jericho. 

Two strong, steady hands gripped his heaving shoulders, pulled him close in an embrace that felt alien and overwhelmingly familiar all at once. Yinsen knelt beside him, supported the inventor’s limp weight against his own, slighter frame, and let him cry. 

“I can’t do it anymore,” Tony finally choked out. His voice was scratchy from abuse. “I’m going to give them what they want.”

“And I would not blame you,” Yinsen said softly, not a hint of judgement in his tone. “These men are barbaric, there methods cruel. That you have resisted thus far is a testament to your strength.

“But you do not see the whole picture. You believe your only options are giving in or torment. There is a third.”

Tony scoffed. “You mean escape? Impossible.”

Yinsen tilted his head. “For a normal man, yes. But you are not normal, Tony Stark. You are special. I once saw you give a coherent lecture on integrated circuits while heavily intoxicated, a feat many would say is impossible.” 

The inventor laughed wetly into Yinsen’s shoulder, stopping abruptly when the electromagnet in his chest protested. 

“I believe it will be hard,” the doctor said, “but not impossible. Not for you.”

They stayed that way, huddled in the corner of that godforsaken cave, for a while. Long enough for Tony’s legs to fall asleep. Eventually, his cries subsided, and when they did he pushed himself away from Yinsen, albeit slowly. The other man let his arms drop, watching Tony expectantly. There was a new-found sense of purpose, the beginnings of an idea blossoming in the inventor’s mind. He cleared his throat, hugged the heavy car battery to his chest. 

“Well, for starters, we’ll have to get this electromagnet out of my chest,” he announced. Yinsen shook his head. 

“I told you, Mr Stark, I cannot remove any more shrapnel without jeopardizing your life--”

“Oh, I know,” Tony interrupted. “But I have an idea.” 

And from there, the tale continued predictably. The leader of the Ten Rings showed Tony his legacy, thousands of weapons buried in a canyon, destined to destroy the lives of innocents. The inventor took what he needed (“For Jericho”, he told his captors), and, with Yinsen’s help, built the arc reactor in small scale, built the first Iron Man prototype, and blasted his way out of the cave to become the genius, billionaire, superhero, philanthropist the world had grown to adore. 

_And that,_ Tony concluded, _is the sad tale of Tony Stark._

Loki steepled his fingers, rolling the story over in his mind. _Whatever happened to Yinsen?_

_He got to see his family again._ Loki could guess what that implied. 

_I am sorry,_ the god said in a quiet voice. And, oddly enough, he meant it. 

_Yeah, well, it’s over now._ Tony forced a lighter tone to his voice. _I’ve moved on._

_But,_ Loki continued, _if you truly had moved on, why would you still choose this? This solitude?_

_Why does it matter to you?_ Tony snapped. 

_I am simply...trying to understand._

_Don’t._

It was at that moment that the global scan reached completion, impeccably timed, as they were both treading very treacherous waters. The on-screen image of the Earth zoomed in on a tiny red dot, denoting Eihwaz’s location. 

“My completed scan has pinpointed a similar energy signature located in the north-eastern hemisphere of the globe, near Porsanger, Norway,” the computer announced. 

_Of course,_ Loki realized, standing to get a closer look at the monitor. _If indeed this is my second chance, they’d want to make it easy for me to find my way._

_So you know where this is?_

Loki nodded, eyes still trained on the flashing red dot. _I have an idea._ He turned on his heel to face Tony’s wall of suits, assessing each one eagerly. _Which are we taking?_

_Do my ears deceive me? Are you actually eager to get back into one of my “death traps”?_

_I am eager to have my body back as soon as possible, and I am well aware your suits are the fastest mode of transportation. The ends justifies the means._ Loki said. _Tell me which one to take._

Tony sighed. _As much as I’d love to leave now, we’ve got to be smart about this. We are still covered in seiðr burn, after all; even if we got there in a couple hours, we’d still have to wait for them to heal. We just need to be patient for a little while longer. Besides, this gives us a chance to do things smart._

There was nothing Loki hated more than Stark being right. Grudgingly, he turned away from the suits. _Then tell me what needs doing, Stark._

 


	10. The New Prose Edda

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to apologize in advance to any people who have lived or are currently living in Norway. All my research on your fabulous country was done using Google Maps and Google Translate, which are completely inadequate at best and astoundingly inaccurate at worst. Forgive my special brand of geographical ignorance that comes from never leaving the western hemisphere.

It was nearly two days later that they finally touched down in the Lakselv Airport in Norway, and in Stark’s private jet no less. After much debate, they had come to the mutual decision that this was the best course of action; after all, the suit could only carry one person comfortably for long periods of time, and there was no guarantee that Loki would be able to immediately use magic upon their separation to teleport himself wherever he needed to go. They weren’t suitless, though; Tony had made upgrades to his portable Mark V suit, which Loki now carried with him. It was always good to be prepared, in case of an emergency. 

A rental car was waiting for them on the tarmac, and it whisked them along to the hotel that would keep them as long as their business required. Hotels didn’t care about an “indefinite” stay where billionaires were concerned. That night was filled with last minute preparations for the final leg of their trip the next morning. Currently, Loki sat hunched on the floor of their penthouse suite, skeptically eying the gear Tony had ordered him to bring.  

_Is this all absolutely necessary?_

_Look, if you’re going to point out how weak and infantile my body is on a regular basis, you can’t act surprised when its requirements are “excessive”._

_Yes, but four liters of water?_

_That’s not even a ridiculous amount. The hike is going to be at least eight hours round trip, and half of that distance we’re going to be hauling your literal dead weight around. Unless you want to crawl back to the car on your hands and knees because you collapsed from dehydration, you are going to bring every single one._

_The entire box of granola bars, though?_

_Now you’re just being unreasonable. It’s literally food. Do the Aesir not_ eat _?_

_We certainly don’t need twenty-four tasteless sticks to sustain us on a small excursion._

_Small._ Tony scoffed in disbelief. _You will bring_ at least _half of them._

Loki packed _exactly_ half of them. 

The rest of the night was spent planning their route. Even though Loki had a fairly good idea of where they were headed, it had been centuries since he’d last been in these forests. By cross-referencing the coordinates provided by Jarvis with a number of maps Loki had snagged from the lobby, he determined that Eihwaz was located seven miles into a very thick nature reserve directly west of them. There was a road that would take them to a ranger station where they could park, and the rest would be done on foot. 

_I know there’s the whole “motor vehicles are prohibited in national forests” thing,_ Tony said when Loki had finalized their route, _but I really think a steep fine would be worth paying if we were to take an ATV in place of walking._

_It’s only fourteen miles,_ Loki said nonchalantly, as if he regularly walked literal miles daily. 

_Only,_ Tony muttered. _You’re not the one who’s going to have to cope with the physical fall out of walking fourteen miles in a single day._

_A small price to pay for getting your body back._ Loki rolled up the maps and tucked them away into the backpack. Though it was still early by local time, the combination of jet lag and an early wake up call the next morning convinced Tony to let them turn in early. 

They woke before dawn even broke. Loki slung the pack (much too heavy for his liking) over his shoulder, and bit his tongue to keep from complaining when the straps dug uncomfortably into the seiðr burn on his shoulders. The only thing that pushed him forward was the knowledge that, by the end of today, he would be one step closer to a body that could actually hold its magic.

The drive to their starting point was otherwise uneventful; by now, Loki had all but mastered the unnecessary art of the stick shift and could at least change gears without grinding them (most of the time).

After a time on the empty Norwegian roads, the rental car pulled into the deserted car park at Stabbursdalen National Park. Loki stepped out of the driver’s side door, inhaling the fresh scent of pine and heather. The sun had just begun to rise off in the east. 

_It hasn’t changed in a thousand years,_ the god said, and grinned despite himself. 

_How can you tell?_ Tony asked, mentally gesturing to the thick soup of fog that reduced visibility to barely a foot. The trees, which should have stretched on for miles before them, were lost in the grey mist. 

Loki shoved his hands into the pockets of his Northface jacket, stepping off of the pavement and onto the gravel path. _Because I still can’t see it_. 

** Midgard. A village, in a time before time. The sound of laughter and children’s games. A flash of gold hair, smiling blue eyes, a crude wooden facsimile of a very famous hammer. Hiding in the mist, crouching behind trees, hiding a smile between delicate hands. “Catch me if you can, Thor!” **

_That’s all well and good, but perhaps you could leave the nostalgia for later? When you have your own body again?_ Tony interrupted. 

_Right, of course._ From his pocket, Loki withdrew a small handheld GPS, already programmed with Eihwaz’s coordinates. A digitized map popped up, highlighting the route they would have to take to reach the stone’s location. The seven-mile path twisted over a large gradient low and high ground.

Tony was not thrilled. _It’s not too late to buy an ATV. We don’t have to torture ourselves by walking fourteen-miles round trip._

_Don’t be a child,_ Loki chided. _It would do you well to remember that I have only just mastered the enigmatic stick shift. I don’t think we’d be the safest on an off-road vehicle._

Tony reluctantly conceded, and they were off.

Not surprisingly, Loki enjoyed the hike far more than his headmate, lost in the familiarity of the terrain. There were very few memories that the god considered “good”, and a great majority of them were set, in an unexpected twist, on Midgard. There were the recollections of romping here as a child with Thor, utilizing a secret passageway that he had discovered to whisk them to and from Asgard with ease.

There were also the interactions with the mortals, the intoxicating feeling of being worshipped and adored. Plus, the mortals did not retaliate with any impressive force when Loki tricked them (unlike the gods, who imprisoned him or tried to behead him or who threatened to sell him to the frost giants).

_See that river there?_ Loki pointed the spot out to Tony; it was very difficult to see through the mist, but the sound of rushing water gave it away. _I transformed a woman into a goat on its shores._

The inventor reeled. _Why is_ that _one of your best memories?_

The god waved Tony off. _It’s not like she was a good person. She prayed for the gods to kill her husband and child, so she could run off with her lover from another village. It was I who answered her prayer, ordering her to sacrifice a goat and wash its pelt in the shallows. When she returned home with the wet goat hide, I promised that her family would be taken care of. But of course I turned her into goat instead._

_Naturally,_ Tony said. 

_She took the place of the goat she had slaughtered, and her husband and child lived happily ever after. He even remarried, after a time. Really, I did them all a favor._

_I feel there might have been better ways to handle that._

_If you think my judgement was lacking, perhaps I should tell you a tale of Thor._

Tony steeled himself. _It couldn’t possibly be as bad as turning someone into a goat,_ he said unconvincingly.

Loki once again motioned to the river, which had grown wider and easier to see in the dissipating fog. The rushing water was grey and uninviting in the morning light. _There were once two villages here. The first, Karth, lay just south of our position. The other, Vaskr, sat on the opposite bank._

_A child from Karth crossed the river one moonless night, quietly infiltrating the Vaskr village. He stole a single sheep from the flocks of the Vaskr shepherds and returned to Karth, the victimized village none the wiser. In the morning, the Vaskr realized that one of their flock was missing, and knew it could only be the people of Karth who were responsible. The very next night they took a party of Vikings and crossed the river to Karth, where they took two sheep: one for the first of their flock that was stolen, and another as retribution._

_Of course, the people of Karth knew exactly what had happened when they woke to find two sheep missing. They were incensed that the Vaskr would presume to take more than what was theirs, and so they prayed to us, desiring vengeance. It was Thor who answered them, on the cusp of manhood and thirsty to prove himself as a warrior. He roused the Karth and raised a war party to decimate Vaskr. The party took every last one of the Vaskr’s sheep, and their lives._

Tony was stunned. _That doesn’t sound like Thor._

_A different time, different values,_ Loki said, waving a hand dismissively. _And it is not all that shocking. The gods have never viewed mortals as anything but their cosmic playthings._

_Right, right, the whole “you were made to be ruled” schtick._

Loki’s jaw twitched. _I would point out that I was merely repeating what had very literally been carved into my skin, but yes. The principle stands. Odin and Thanos hold mortals in the same regard. The only definite distinction between them is Odin already has what he wants._

_I’m so glad we’ve allied ourselves to them._

_Better an ally than an enemy,_ the god reasoned. 

Their conversations dwindled after that, and eventually the two of them fell into silence all together. But this was a comfortable silence, relaxed and amicable as opposed to strained and chilly. The hours passed quickly as they hiked; Loki found himself enjoying the hike through the crisp air, relishing in the physical exertion. Tony, though not unable to appreciate the outdoors, was still wishing for the ATV. 

_How much longer?_ he panted, hours into their excursion. They’d left the river a while back, venturing into the deep reserve, and every so often Loki would check the GPS to make sure they were still headed in the proper direction. He hadn’t done so in a while.

_It should be just over this hill,_ Loki answered, struggling up a steep embankment. _I recognized where we were going hours ago. Things don’t change much this far north._

_Finally,_ Tony sighed in relief. _I can almost_ use _my arms again._

_I am just as excited to leave your weak body behind as you are to reclaim it._ Loki purred. The god came to a halt at the summit of the embankment, breathing hard, surveying the sight that lay before them. 

The bank they were on was part of a circular ridge, very large in scope. Tony estimated at least fifty meters in diameter. It was disguised from above by an unusually thick cluster of pine trees that grew around the rim, their branches arching over the shallow indentation (no deeper than a meter or two). Lying dead center in the valley formed by the unnatural ridge was the biggest ash tree Tony had ever seen, towering above them at a height of at least two-hundred feet. Its trunk was thick and knotted, easily seven meters across. 

_What is this place?_ Tony asked, unable to mask the awe in his voice. There was something captivating, otherworldly, about the sight. Loki, of course, was unfazed. He’d been here many times before. 

_A shrine,_ he said, beginning his descent down the opposite side of the steep ridge. 

_To… you?_

_Hardly,_ Loki answered, amused. _I am the god of fire, and the god of lies. A tree is a poor representation of me._ The god paused at the base of the hill, and pointed out the nine smooth, almost perfectly spherical hunks of granite that were partially embedded in the soil equidistance around the ash tree. If Loki hadn’t singled them out, Tony might have missed them; they were weathered, covered in moss and leaf litter. 

_Each stone represents one of the Nine Realms,_ Loki explained, and nodded back to the ancient ash tree. _And that tree is meant to symbolize the World Tree, Yggdrasil. Every solstice, winter and summer, it aligns perfectly with the real Tree in Asgard._

_Really now,_ Tony commented, intrigued by the astronomical knowledge behind such a feat. _Who built it?_

_No one that I know. It has always been here, in this realm, since the beginning of time._

_Someone had to put it here,_ Tony pressed, his scientific mind getting the best of him. _Things don’t just appear._

_Well._ Loki gestured broadly to the tree. _This did._

_That’s impossible._

_Magic, Stark,_ Loki interrupted, in a how-do-you-not-understand-this-by-now tone. Tony grumbled something about hokey religions under his breath. 

_Alright, so we have an ancient magical shrine, put here by ancient magical means. Where is the ancient magical stone? And your ancient magical corpse?_

Loki held up the GPS device, eyeing the flashing red dot that indicated Eihwaz’s signature. _According to your instrument, it is a few feet in front of and below us._ Right where he knew it would be. The god lowered the device, his eyes tracing the distance between it and the tree. Tony threw up his metaphorical hands. 

_Great, it’s inside the tree. I don’t suppose we could just cut down the ancient magical tree?_

_Relax_ , Loki crooned, crossing space to stand by the tree. _This shrine is also a prison._ He rapped his knuckles sharply against the bark, producing a hollow-sounding echo. _You will find the tree is not solid all the way through. When it aligns with Yggdrasil each solstice, the entrance is revealed._

_Oh, right, silly me. Let’s just sit around and wait for the twenty-first of December for the very obvious tree-prison to open. That’s much more sensible._

Loki stepped back, looking up at the tangle of branches. _This would likely explain why Lajek didn’t feel unsafe telling me what he knew. He believed I would be unable to retrieve my body from its resting place._

_He was mostly right, it looks like._ Tony muttered sourly. _Do we really have to wait four months?_

_Of course not._ Loki’s voice was bright. _My body was not placed here arbitrarily. This place may be a prison, but lucky for us it is a prison that I have escaped from._

_That’s right, you were turning mortals into goats long before I met you._

Loki grinned ferally at that. _All you have to do is trick the tree into opening._

_Let me guess,_ Tony said. _Magic?_

_Why Stark, you’re finally learning._

_But seiðr burns, remember?_

Loki glanced down at the burns, only now beginning to scale over. _I will never understand how your kind managed to survive, much less evolve, when it takes you excess of a few days to heal something as simple as a flesh wound._

_Spite,_ Tony answered simply. 

The god rolled his eyes. _Regardless, we cannot afford to wait until your delicate skin takes its time to heal properly._ _There will be discomfort, but it will not last long. The spell is not complex._

_And what exactly is this spell?_

In response, Loki cast his eyes above the tallest of the oak’s branches, arms outstretched, and whispered a slew of words in Old Norse. He winced involuntarily as the spell took effect; it felt as though someone were drawing sandpaper roughly across his burns. But the feeling was temporary, and it subsided as the magic formed a very definite shape above the shrine. 

_You’ve got to be shitting me,_ Tony said as the illusion solidified. He’d seen enough of Loki’s memories to recognize the actual World Tree when he saw it, only this one was in miniature. The Tiny Yggdrasil hovered just over the forest canopy, its brilliant gold and silver light lancing through the fog to dance on the oak tree below. With an eerie creak, a seamless panel hidden in the oak tree’s many knots swung open. Loki dropped his arms, and the Tiny Yggdrasil vanished. _That was stupidly simple._

The god couldn’t help but laugh at Tony’s response. _That was my thought as well. I was stuck in this damned tree for years, and all it would have taken to release me was a spell I learned as a child. Asgard knew my tendency to overthink problems, so they made the key to the prison as simple as possible._

_What did you even do to be put in here?_ Tony wondered as Loki sidled through the narrow opening in the oak tree. _If Thor could slaughter a village unopposed, it must have taken something pretty bad to have Odin lock you away._

_You forget, I never was Odin’s favorite._ Loki said, remaining carefully emotionless. _It took much less than raiding a Midgardian settlement to land me here. But that is another story for another day. For now,_ the god straightened to his full height. The entrance remained open behind them, daylight illuminating the rough hewn steps that circled down beneath the ground. _Let us focus on the task at hand._

Given the inventor’s dogged interrogation of Loki in the past, the god was surprised when Tony dropped the subject. Perhaps it was the sight of the dim staircase to nowhere, and the promise of autonomy that lay at the bottom, that made Loki’s past seem unimportant by comparison. The inventor was all but bouncing in their head, urging the god forward. _Let’s Indiana Jones this bitch._

Loki blinked in confusion, pausing at the top of the stairs. _….What?_

_Another Midgaridan classic you need to be introduced to,_ Tony said whimsically. _Now move it! I’m ready to move my arms again._

The descent to the subterranean prison was longer than Loki remembered. The staircase spiraled downwards in a seemingly endless loop. When the daylight faded behind them, he used the GPS device as a lamp. The weak light bounced off the stone-reinforced walls of the stairwell, offering limited visibility. As he walked, the already chilly air grew frigid and damp. Condensation clung to his clothes, soaking them through before long. 

_I have decided that adventuring sucks, and we should return to the surface as soon as possible,_ Tony concluded after a while, shivering in the back of their mind. 

_Does the cold bother you, Stark?_

Afghanistan. The cave. Shivering in a corner, clinging tightly to a thin sweatshirt, soaked completely through. 

_Right. Sorry._

Luckily for the inventor, their descent didn’t last much longer. The granite steps eventually evened out, the claustrophobic corridor widening into a broad antechamber. Water dripped from an unknown source, pooling in small indentations worn into the stone floor. 

_How far below the surface do you think we are?_ Tony wondered. 

_I could not say for sure. Fifty meters, at least. Perhaps deeper._ Loki shone the light around, getting a feel for the space. It had been centuries since he was incarcerated here. The chamber they stood in was square, with a ceiling so tall that the glow of the GPS device couldn’t reach it. Nordic patterns were carved into the dais, depicting scenes from the ancient past. Loki didn’t linger long on the glyphs. At the back of the chamber, opposite the staircase, stood a thick wooden door reinforced with metal fittings. 

And behind that door lay Eihwaz.

_And the conclusion to this horrible chapter of our lives,_ Tony put in.

With soft footsteps Loki crossed the room, put his hand on the smooth wooden door. It eased open at the slightest touch, allowing them egress into a still larger chamber. More of a cavern than a chamber, really. The source of the dampness was revealed: an underground stream, babbling quietly along, ran straight across their path. The stone floors gave way to soft peat, and Loki felt his foot sink down an inch or two as he crossed the threshold. 

The roof of the cavern was still lost in darkness, and now the walls moved beyond the scope of the light in the god’s hand. 

_This is some prison,_ Tony commented. _Really loving the lack of cells and confining spaces. This could be a vacation spot._

_The restraints you are looking for are right there,_ Loki said, nodding towards the center of the cavern. Past the small stream, the ground sloped towards the center, creating a bowl-like formation. Not quite centered in the bowl was a crumbling stone dais, bearing similar Nordic runes to the ones from the antechamber. At this distance, many of them seemed to bear a snake-like motif. 

And there, lying atop the dais, looking for all the world to simply be sleeping, was Loki. Or, rather, Loki’s body. As the god moved towards the dais, the glow of the GPS grew more pronounced, playing off of the watery mist that filled the cavern, saturating the entire space in an ethereal glow. The entire chamber felt surreal, dreamlike. 

_Talk about an out-of-body experience,_ Tony joked, drawing the god back to reality. 

_Right_ , Loki huffed out a breath and shook his head. He stepped up on the dais, standing over the body now, surveying it with a detached look. It was dressed in armor similar to what Tony remembered from New York. Black and green, composed of excessive amounts of leather and metal. 

_Is the dominatrix look just popular on Asgard?_ he asked. 

_It’s_ armor _, Stark. Shall I go to battle in gossamer and fine linens?_

_I’m just saying, you could stand to make it a little less kinky._

Loki could only roll his eyes. Beyond the clothing, the level of preservation was astonishing, as if the All Father had simply frozen the body in time. Perhaps the skin was a bit pallid, but Loki had been notorious for his nearly-translucent skin even in life. The only sign that it had ever suffered trauma was the raised white line encircling its neck. The sight made Loki’s blood boil. 

Second chance or no, the god wasn’t sure he could forgive his not-father for this. He could feel the hard stone of the prison courtyard biting into his legs, the slight ache in his back as he was forced over the chopping block. The horrifying feeling of being drugged and gagged, of falling and not stopping, was still fresh in his mind. One hand worked into a tight fist at his side. Perhaps, when this whole episode was resolved, he would pay the All Father a visit….

_Revenge sure worked well last time,_ Tony said sarcastically, knowing this was a path they didn’t want to travel down. Not when they were so _close_.

Loki stopped his train of thought in its tracks, a curious expression replacing the unadulterated rage of moments before. _I thought you didn’t believe me about Thanos._

Tony gave the mental equivalent ofa shrug. _That was before E.T. appeared to corroborate your story. Finding your astonishingly well-preserved mummy helped, too._

_You accept that the events at New York were not my intention?_ the god said, unable to help the foolishly hopeful note that crept into his voice. 

_I didn’t say that,_ Tony interjected. _But there’s..._ clearly _more to the story than what we originally saw. I was almost in your same position, after all. Odin isn’t the bad guy we should be focusing on right now._

Once more, Loki found himself agreeing with the inventor. It has happening with disturbing frequency lately. _The question now is, how do we bring my body back to the hotel without raising any eyebrows?_

_Let’s just say, you stole the body of the right guy._

 


	11. Run Like Hell

Stark’s solution to moving the body was so simple it was clever. Given the level of magical preservation, rigor mortis wasn’t an issue. As had been noted before, Loki may just as easily have been sleeping. Or unconscious. Or black-out drunk.

_We just walk it through the lobby, and if anyone asks, we just say you had a little_ too _much fun_. 

_As if your Midgardian ale could actually intoxicate a god._

_They don’t know you’re a god,_ Tony said. _And if you do something about your dungeon master get up, they won’t look twice at us._

_Done,_ Loki answered, waving his hand down the length of the body on the dais. The burns on his arms protested only slightly as the illusion spell gave the corpse a new set of imaginary Midgardian wear: jeans and a sweatshirt. The disguise looked very strange on the god. 

_There is one last detail,_ Loki said, circling the body on the dais and letting his hand trail over the body’s upper chest. He was looking for something very specific--

_You aren’t about to get really weird on me, are you?_ Tony asked in a rush, now very suspicious of Loki’s intentions. The god wrinkled his nose in disgust. 

_Gods no,_ he said, wrapping his hand around the cadaver’s neck. _The body must be fully healed before a revival is attempted. Lajek’s removal of the implant is guaranteed to have left damage._

_Why are you worrying about this now?_

_Suppose we are stopped on the way home, and your explanation doesn’t work. Or, rather, works too well. What should happen to us if they realize the body doesn’t not have a pulse?_ His finger probed along the body’s hairline, and located with ease the large, ragged puncture wound where the neural implant had once sat. 

_You really don’t like to take chances, do you?_

_I am not one to leave a potential weakness unaccounted for._

Tony might have smirked if he had any muscle control. _They should have let you build the Death Star. No pesky thermal exhaust port to throw a wrench in your plans._

Loki did the smirking for him. _I certainly would not have let it go unaccounted for._ As he spoke the god gathered his magic in his fingertips, letting the current knit the inert tissues back together. The seiðr burns were really smarting now; Loki had to wonder if he wasn’t making them worse. If he hadn’t, he was about to. 

Necromancy was a very touchy thing. The amount of magic required was surprisingly minimal, but the spells themselves were hopelessly complex and required the utmost concentration. If it was done wrong, the results could be disastrous. The god had seen those disasters first hand, and he wasn’t eager to replicate them.

_You need to be very quiet, or this could turn out badly for the both of us,_ Loki warned. 

The memory of slavering, mindless corpses was back. _I’m assuming this is why?_

_Yes. I would like to avoid that, if possible._

_Roger._ Tony said, and promptly shut up. Loki wished it had always been this easy.

Without delay he rested his right hand over the left side of the body’s chest. The god let his breathing slow, taking fewer and increasingly more shallow breaths, until he was barely pulling air in at all. He felt his heart slow in his chest. To raise the dead, you had to imitate the dead. Black spots swam in front of his vision as his brain cried for oxygen. 

Minutes passed, and it was a fight against the mortal body’s survival instinct. To panic in the end was to pass that panic onto the resurrected body, leading to the aforementioned disasters. To Tony’s credit, he maintained his silence (though it was tainted over so slightly by anxiety). Loki’s lips wordlessly formed each syllable in a long-dead language, silently invoking the power of the spell. And finally, right at the edge of collapsing from oxygen deprivation, he gripped the magical currents in his veins and inhaled. The magic rushed from his fingertips, driven straight to the inert heart on the dais, and the two bodies sucked in air simultaneously. As Loki panted to catch his breath, he felt the firm heartbeat of the body beneath his palm. 

_And that,_ Loki couldn’t help the grin that split his face, _is how to resurrect a body. As you can see, it requires the utmost discipline._

Tony was beyond impressed. _You weren’t shitting with me; you actually turned yourself into a zombie._

_Magic,_ Loki reiterated. As his breathing and heart rate returned to normal, the god wrapped his arm around the body’s waist and hauled it off the dais. A small stone clattered from the resurrected body’s hands as it was moved. _There_ was Eihwaz. 

_Thor says science and magic are the same on Asgard._

_Thor is also an idiot._ Loki said as he tucked the runestone into his sock and stumbled towards the exit. He had never realized just how _heavy_ he was. 

This, in part, ensured that the hike back to the car was exhausting, and not nearly as enjoyable as the hike to the shrine had been. At least, for Loki that was the case. Whereas the god dealt with the exhaustion in anger and frustration, Tony had crossed a line into delirious. And for some reason he found their current predicament hilarious. 

Walking unencumbered over the rough terrain had been one thing, but crossing it lugging around a comatose body was another animal entirely. Loki was severely regretting his decision to nix the water and the granola bars. By the time they made it back to the rental car, he was ravenous and dehydrated. 

_What was that about excessive amounts of food and water?_ Tony sang. Though he was equally affected by their physical state, his “I told you so” attitude trumped his discomfort. 

A number of snarky replies jumped to Loki’s mind. Unfortunately, he was just too tired to actually give them a voice. He settled for a number of quiet grunts and glares, and once he’d started the car he made sure to use the clutch as little as possible. The sounds of death from under the rental’s hood silenced Tony very fast. 

They reached the hotel late enough that staggering through the lobby carrying a limp body raised very few eyebrows (especially considering nearly every hotel patron recognized the short, brown-haired inventor). For once, Tony’s reputation for not having a partying off-switch was an asset. 

Once in their room, Loki very nearly dropped his body onto the bed. It took everything not to collapse beside it (and by everything, he meant Tony).

_We are not sleeping in the same bed,_ Tony was adamant. _Not when there is a perfectly good couch in the other room._

Loki, for one, did not want to move. _Technically we’ve been sleeping in the same bed for two months._

_Do I need to channel my inner Roger Waters again?_ Tony asked. 

Loki gave a long-suffering sigh in response, and grudgingly retired to the couch. He could go his entire life without hearing Tony sing ever again. Thirsty, exhausted, and with arms smarting, he was asleep the instant his head hit the pillow. 

The burns were worse in the morning, having blistered again overnight. Loki glared at them unhappily, while Tony mentally ripped his hair out. 

_What would happen if we just….did the spell?_ the inventor asked. _I can handle a few burns easy-peasy._

_Do you remember when I told you mages had died from seiðr burn, Stark?_

_You don’t think this could be that bad, do you?_

Loki thinned his lips. _Given the state of your naturally-frail mortal form--_

_Oh for fucks’ sake,_ Tony griped. _Forget it. How long do we have to wait?_

The god sighed, twisting his arms back and forth in front of his face. _I am not sure. A week?_

Tony imagined banging his head against a wall. 

_We don’t have to wait until it heals fully,_ Loki tried to reassure the inventor. _Perhaps wait until the blisters disappear. Three days?_

_Well,_ the inventor sighed, resigned to three more days as a prisoner in his own body, _I have always wanted to do some sightseeing around here. And what better tour guide than an actual Norse god? Just...no more hikes._

_Yes, dear,_ Loki agreed. 

So instead of hiking, they drove. For the god, this was a nostalgia trip he didn’t mind going on. It seemed, at every turn, either he had turned someone into something else (rocks and livestock seemed to be his favorite), or Thor had wrecked entire villages with nothing but his hammer. There was more village-wrecking than anything, actually. By the third day it became a game to them: Loki would point out a site with some personal historical significance, and Tony would guess if it was pillaging or pranking. 

Their penultimate stop was brought them from their Grand Tour of Ancient Fuckery back to Lakselv. Tony marked this as odd immediately--all their historical stops had been fields or forests or national monuments thus far. A town was suspicious.

_The repetitiveness was boring you,_ Loki stated after pulling into the hotel. _So I decided to….mix it up._  

_Well, you know….you grow used to the loose morals and rampant destruction after a while,_ Tony answered. 

_Seeing as it is our last night together,_ Loki said. Instead of going inside the hotel, he took a left and followed the main street to a then-unknown location. _Perhaps I would treat you to something_ special _._

The god’s voice made Tony immediately wary. _Special_ how _?_

_You will see._ He didn’t bother to hide the broad and very suspicious smile on his face. After a short five-minute walk, they reached what was to all appearances a very normal-looking restaurant. Tony was hyperalert, looking for the inevitable practical joke as they stepped inside. But there was nothing at their table, nothing in the way Loki ordered or the waiter responded, to clue him in (granted, it was all in Norwegian, but Tony had the help of Loki’s memories to translate. Somewhat). Nothing seemed out of the ordinary until the actual meal arrived. 

_What the fuck is that,_ the inventor said, repulsed, as the waiter sat main course on the table before him. It appeared, at first glance, to be a seared sheep’s head sawn evenly down the middle. 

_That is exactly what it is._ Loki took pleasure in Tony’s revulsion. 

_Don’t you dare put that in my body._

_You wanted sightseeing,_ Loki said, paying him no heed. _Live a little, Stark._ He slowly, deliberately, sawed a chunk of meat off of the nose of the head and, reveling in the protests from his headmate, ate it.

There had already been a history of Tony reacting strongly enough to elicit a response from his commandeered body (the most notable example being his nightmares from their first nights together). And now, second most notable, was the tasting of _smalahove_. The moment the meat hit his tongue, Loki felt his gag reflex kick in. He coughed involuntarily and spat the mouthful of meat back on his plate, but the taste lingered.

_Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew,_ Tony chanted, disgusted. _Oh gosh, does Thor eat this?_

The god cackled under his breath and reached for the glass of ice water by his plate. _All of Asgard eats this,_ Loki chuckled as he took a long pull from the glass. Here was the nostalgia from before, the rare good memories of a thousand years ago, rushing to the forefront of Loki’s mind. So lost in them was the god that, for a moment, he forgot that Stark could hear and see them all. _My own children ate this before they could walk._

And there came Tony’s visceral reaction again, which sent the god spitting his water out across the table. Loki, realizing what he’d just said, clasped a hand over his mouth (as if that would take back the mental words he’d carelessly formed). There was a very pregnant pause. 

_You have kids?_ Tony finally asked, voice hushed and incredulous. Loki wiped his mouth and cleared his throat, keeping not just his face but his very being emotionless. 

_Once upon a time,_ he said carefully. _Your ancestors wrote stories of them. I’m rather surprised you do not know of them, having Thor on your team._

_I never did that homework._ Tony still wasn’t over the revelation. _So like, actual kids? Not just adopted kids or apprentices, but biological children?_

Loki attacked the sheep’s head on his plate with a very not-emotionless vigor, maintaining his impassive expression. _Why is that shocking?_

_You just don’t...seem...fatherly?_ Tony tried, understanding the treacherous ground he walked. But Loki hadn’t told him to leave it just yet, and dammit he was _curious_. _They’re adults, right?_

_They would be._

Oh. _Oh, shit._ The inventor backtracked. _Loki, I’m sorry, I...fuck, I should have done some reading. Sorry, we can drop this…._

And Loki sighed, let his fork drop. He found his appetite had fled. _Do not apologize. I broached the subject, unwittingly or no. Given my past I understand your interest. It has just been…._ ages _since I talked about them._

Another pause, in which Tony calculated his odds of pulling information from the god. _Can I ask what happened to them?_ he attempted to be as meek as possible. Loki steepled his fingers on the table and closed his eyes. 

_Odin._

Well of course. The inventor should have seen that coming. 

_Jor and Fenrir, they were shapeshifters like I am, but_ powerful _. It is much like a father to embellish the talents of his children, of his sons, but believe me, Stark. Even I, awful as it seems, was jealous of them. Their power frightened Odin, and he locked them away. I have not seen them in centuries._ Loki’s mouth twisted angrily, the rage returning to his bones. _He tells me they live, but I do not trust his word._

_Of course you don’t,_ Tony said hotly, unnerved by the All-Father’s apparent callousness. _Were they your only kids?_

Loki barked a bitter laugh that was tellingly choked and wet. _They had a sister, Hela. She never spoke a word as long as I knew her. But either Odin truly hated me, or he sensed something that I did not. When he took her he told me it was to give her a throne she never would have had otherwise. I foolishly believed him. She rules a realm of her own, protects the lost souls of the Aesir, but I am forbidden to see her._

Loki’s tale dropped off abruptly, and Tony sensed there was something the god wasn’t telling him. But for once, he didn’t push the issue. There was a time when Tony would have ignored the god’s discomfort, perhaps even relished in it, but for some reason he now felt…. _guilty_. This was a pain different from that held in his memories of Thanos, raw even after centuries, as painful as the burns crawling over his arms. And Tony felt obligated to fix it. 

_You said even your kids liked this sheep’s head thing,_ Tony tried, playing on the good memories Loki had let slip moments before. _But how did you convince them to even try it?_

Loki saw exactly what the inventor was doing instantly, and he appreciated it regardless. With a forced smile that became steadily less forced, he picked up his fork and returned to the meal. _I told them the heads belonged to Uncle Thor’s goats and that eating them would make him mad._

It was a very Loki thing to do. _Like father, like son….s and daughter._

_I taught them well,_ was his response. He took another bite, and this time Tony didn’t react. Once you got around the fact that you were eating a literal sheep’s head, it didn’t taste so bad. 

Dinner progressed without a hitch from then on. Loki spoke no more of his children, and Tony didn’t ask. Of course, he had a number of questions, but he kept them confined to the realm of: _Thor has goats? Why does Thor have goats? What_ purpose _do Thor’s goats serve?_

And so the evening hours waned. By the time they left the restaurant, the sun had set and below freezing temperatures gripped the small village. 

_Why the fuck didn’t we drive again?_ Tony griped. 

Loki pulled the jacket tighter about himself. _The cold builds character._ But, now that he was outside, he did wish for their vehicle. This was not a familiar cold. It was uneasy, unsettling. It was an absence of heat went beyond the mere setting of the sun. The cold was a deep emptiness, a vacuum, a Void...

“Something isn’t right…” Loki murmured aloud. The street was suddenly too quiet, too still. He paused underneath the orange glow of a streetlamp, observing the area without seeming to. 

_What do you smell, boy?_ Tony asked in a peppy voice. Loki shushed him. 

_I think we’re being followed._

The inventor made a point of looking from one side of the conspicuously empty street to the other. _By what? Smurfs?_

_Ha, ha,_ Loki said sarcastically. He spun around underneath the lamp, wishing he’d thought to carry a knife or a weapon of some sort. But there was nothing but an empty street behind him.

_There’s no one here,_ Tony assured the god. _Now get moving. I’m fucking freezing._

But the god knew better. A thousand years of watching his own back had taught him never to ignore his gut instinct, because often times, it was spot on. His eyes roamed the surrounding area, looking for something, anything that could be a weapon. How foolish he was to leave the hotel unarmed. 

_You are the textbook definition of paranoid,_ Tony jabbed, not concerned in the slightest. 

His nonchalance irritated the god. _You have enemies, Stark. You should at least be wary._

Tony scoffed. _My enemies aren’t the kind to lurk about in the shadows. And besides, we left unannounced. Unless they’re tracking my credit cards, no one even knows we’re here._

That was obviously not the case. In the next moment Loki felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise, heard the displacement of air as something moved up behind him. With lightning speed he turned on his heel, throwing up his elbow and catching a shadowy figure in the jaw. The attacker dropped like a sack of rocks to the ground.

_What was that, Stark?_ Loki asked, bending down to examine the fallen person’s body. Their assailant was dressed in all black, their face covered by a dark ski mask. 

_How cliche,_ Tony muttered. The god curled his fingers around the mask’s hem to pull it off, but froze when he felt the skin underneath. It was cold, hard, scaled…

“Hello, Loki,” a familiar voice purred. The god felt the barrel of a gun press between his shoulder blades. Slowly, hands outstretched to show he was weaponless, Loki rose to his feet. 

“How strange to hear your voice again, Lajek,” he answered. Something akin to fear pushed his heart into a gallop. The pressure of the weapon at his back was lessened, and Loki turned to see the plain-faced man in a different, but still equally unremarkable, suit. This time, however, he was surrounded by five more Skrulls, are dressed in black. All with very large firearms pointed directly at the god. 

_Does anybody actually stay dead anymore?_ Tony asked, exasperation unsuccessfully masking his own fear. _Of do you all just respawn from a fixed point?_

“I never trusted you, not after all your tricks,” the Skrull said, sauntering closer, keeping the looming barrel of the gun pointed at Loki’s chest. “It would have been foolish to go to that convention alone.” 

Loki’s eyes jumped over the disguised Skrulls. “Am I to assume they all wished to escape Thanos as well?” 

Lajek nodded. “You would assume correct. They--” he motioned to the shadowy figures behind him, “--and all the rest of my brothers and sisters. But we aren’t too broken up about it. You see, when Thanos learns that we’ve recaptured you, we will be rewarded greatly. It won’t be freedom, but perhaps it will make enslavement all the more tolerable.”

_We can’t let them take us,_ Tony stated the obvious. 

_But we cannot fight them._

_Magic?_

_Even I am not faster than a gun, let alone six of them._

_Then what is even the point of you?_

_Shadows and tricks are the tools of my trade,_ Loki said ruefully. _And I have been robbed of both._

“He will want me alive,” the god said aloud, nodding to the weapon in Lajek’s hand. 

The Skrull smirked. “Oh, I know. Stun setting is a beautiful thing. It might take a few shots to knock out a god, but, well.” He moved in close, so close that Loki could feel the heat from his breath on his face. The gun’s barrel tapped his chest mockingly. 

_Take it,_ Tony ordered. Their minds were on the same page. In an instant Loki had reached out, gripped the stock of the weapon and yanked it from Lajek’s hand. He kicked the Skrull in the chest and hit the floor as a shower of weapons fire rained over his head. 

_Now run._ With only a single shot over this shoulder, the god jumped up and ran full-tilt for a nearby alley. Behind them, he could hear Lajek shouting in a guttural language that was undeniably alien. 

_We need to get back to the hotel,_ Loki panted as he skidded to a stop behind the alley wall. 

_No,_ Tony argued, _there are people there. They obviously have no qualms about showing up in populous places, otherwise why the masks?_

_We could do more if we had the suit._ Loki clamored on top of a nearby dumpster, and grabbed the lip of the low roof on one of the buildings the formed the alleyway. With a grunt he hauled himself on top just as the band of Skrulls rounded the corner. There were more of them now, almost ten in all. Loki managed to squeeze off three shots, taking out three of the aliens, before they aimed their more powerful arms his way. 

_I cannot possibly take out all of them with one pistol,_ he grunted as he pelted over the rooftop. Lakselv was a small village, with buildings built far apart. The gap between this building and the next was at least ten feet. Without pausing, Loki jumped. 

His feet slipped on the icy roof and he fell with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs. The Skrulls were on the roof now, and their gunfire peppered the ground around Loki.

_We can’t keep this up,_ the god said as he dove behind a heating vent on the roof, waiting for a pause in the volley of bullets before peeking out and sending out two more shots. Both missed. _We need to reach the suit._

_We can’t lead them back to the hotel._ Tony repeated. Loki glanced over the edge of the roof as he spoke, and caught site of another group of shadow figures coming to reinforce the first group. He fell back against the vent, defeated. 

_No,_ he agreed. _We would never make it. Unless…_

_Unless what?_

_I could get back to the hotel. Get to the suit._

Tony put two and two together. _No. No! You aren’t leaving me._

A shot from the first Skrull party dinged off the vent. _So we should both be caught?_ he shot back, returning the Skrull’s fire. The pistol faltered on the final shot; he was running low on ammo. _There is no sense in both of us being captured. If I go, I can come back for you._

_“Can” doesn’t mean “will”._

Loki made an irritated noise. _After all this time, after all that we have been through, you still don’t trust me?_

_Would you?_

His words forced the god to pause. The god closed his eyes and listened to the sounds of the Skrulls’ approaching footsteps. They were on the roof now, and at the base of the building. There was nothing to be done about their imminent capture now. _I swear to you, on Jor and Fenrir and Hela, that I will return for you. I will not leave you on your own, Stark._

Lajek appeared above them, grinning smugly. Tony saw no other way out.

_Go,_ he relented. _But you better come back for me._

Loki let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. _I promise._ And, with a powerful surge of magic, he was gone, leaving Tony at the mercy of the Skrulls.

 

 

 


	12. On-Purpose Heroics

For the third time in only a few weeks, Loki was falling. It was watching his hand turn blue in a Jotunn's grip and knowing the truth of his heritage. It was watching his not-father lying in the Odinsleep, withholding secrets like he had always withheld his affection. It was watching his mother stand mute at the Throne of Asgard, sentencing her son to death with her silence. It was feeling everything and nothing at all. 

When the falling stopped, when he hit the ground at last, Loki jerked awake in the hotel bed, panting hard. Unlike his smooth transition into Stark's body, so subtle he'd barely noticed a shift, this switching of bodies left him feeling shaken and numb. Perhaps it was because he hadn't been drugged before the jump this time. Perhaps it was his knowledge of what awaited Stark, and a fear for the man who now found himself alone in an unfamiliar situation. Perhaps it was just a poorly executed spell. But for whatever reason, it took Loki a full ten minutes before he had complete control of his limbs and his face. 

Those ten minutes were agonizing, simply because time was of the essence if he wanted to get Stark back alive. And he did, Loki realized. Desperately. The mental closeness, the sharing of intimate memories, had left a lasting impression on the god. Loki cared about the mortal, about his well being, and cared _deeply_. This might have disturbed him if he hadn't been in such a hurry. Stark's life was at stake; there was no time to contemplate the implications of his new-found...devotion? Affection? Tolerance?

With great difficulty (having been used to Stark's small stature, it was a challenge to coordinate Loki's naturally gangly limbs) the god heaved himself off the bed. The suit they had brought with them to Norway, still neatly compacted into its suitcase shell, sat propped against the desk in the main room of the suite. It was the god's only mode of transportation in this state; he could barely trust himself to stand upright, let alone teleport across the realm. The thought of the two hour journey back to New York did nothing for his anxiety, but it would be worse to wait around until his magic was under his control--that could take days. 

Without hesitation, Loki donned the armor. It still felt bulky and cumbersome on his frame, but it was the fastest way back to Tony. For once, the suit was an asset. He launched himself into the air from the suite’s balcony, and immediately began the journey home.

It was dusk by the time the god finally flew over the Hudson river, illuminated by New York's shimmering lights. Stark Tower, now bearing the stylized "A" of the Avengers, was an impressive beacon of light among the large swaths of unlit streets below--scars from the Battle of New York not a year prior. The sight made Loki uneasy; he focused on where he knew the aerial entrance to Stark's lab to be and ignored the eerie darkness. 

It was inevitable that his arrival would trigger sensors, he knew. The Avengers were bound to have questions about Tony's apparent unannounced departure nearly a week prior. Loki would have to be in and out. He hoped Jarvis would have no trouble detecting Eihwaz's dim signature a second time. He hit the familiar concrete floors with a running step, all but flinging himself out of the suit’s metal embrace, and staggered for Jarvis's mainframe, calling orders as he went. 

"Jarvis, I need you to do a global scan for energy signature M-1247," he said. The computer beeped angrily at him. 

"You are not authorized to access this information," Jarvis chimed. Loki cursed. Of course, he no longer sounded like Stark. There was no fooling the computer. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to recall the authorization code he'd needed to gain access to the mainframe to begin with. 

"Override authorization november-charlie-charlie zero five one four." He held his breath as Jarvis processed the code. 

"Override accepted. Welcome home, Mr Stark." 

Loki sighed in relief and repeated his order. "Once the energy signature has been found, chart a flight path directly to the source and download it to the Mark V." 

"Processing," Jarvis said. "One moment please."

The large set of computer screens at Tony's desk lit up as the AI set upon his search. If his last run with the computer's tracking systems was anything to go by, this would take a while. And there was nothing the god could do to speed up the process. He scowled at the screens, hunched his shoulders, and steeled himself for the wait. He could only hope that, by chance, Jarvis found Eihwaz's signature soon. 

"Tony, where have you been?" A familiar voice buzzed over the tower's intercom. Steve. Loki glanced from the speaker to the computer, which still showed a negative on the scans. Without his magic, there was no way he could imitate Stark (even after the two hour flight home, he still felt woozy; he was beginning to think he'd simply cast a bad spell). 

** A man in white armor standing over a radio. Gun fire ricocheting behind him. An interrogation via an intercom. "We're fine, we're all fine here, now, thank you. How are you?"  **

Loki ignored the captain and continued pacing before the screens. 

"Look, Tony, something's come up. We need you. If you don't answer, I'm coming down there. And I'm bringing Thor with me."

** A suspicious voice from the intercom. "We're sending a squad up." The man in white shooting the panel, looking stressed. "Boring conversation anyway." **

The progress bar was at a disheartening twenty-nine percent, and though it moved at a much faster pace than last time, it still seemed agonizingly slow. Loki stopped pacing, gripped the counter until his fingers turned white. He _didn't_ need company. 

"Come on, come on..." he urged it onward. 

"I swear you're a child, Tony," Steve sounded exasperated. "We're on our way down. If you want your lab to remain intact, I suggest you have that door unlocked by the time we get down there.”

That was certainly not going to happen. Loki glanced from the computer, to the Mark V, to the transparent glass door where Cap and his crew would soon arrive; there was simply no way the scan would be completed in time. No one on the team would listen to the truth even if he told it, and in his weakened state, he was no match to fend them off until Eihwaz was found. 

“Jarvis, continue scan. Forgo the flight plan and download signature coordinates to the Mark V directly the moment the object is found.”

“Yes, sir.”

Loki moved to step back into the suit, in anticipation of the Avenger’s pending arrival. He estimated he had minutes. Unfortunately for him, Stark had installed the fastest elevators into the Tower that he could find. His minutes turned to seconds, and an alarmed shout from the outside alerted Loki that they were already there. 

The god swore and leapt back into the metal embrace of the suit, glancing to the lab’s entrance as he went. Steve looked helpless outside the glass, his face twisted in an angry snarl. And Thor…

...Thor looked equal parts grief-stricken and rage-filled. His eyes locked with Loki’s. The god shivered. 

“Jarvis, we’re out of time! How is that scan coming?” he shouted as the faceplate locked into place. 

“Fifty-three percent complete, sir,” Jarvis said, voice echoing inside the HUD. The scan was going remarkably fast this time around. Just not fast enough. A thunderous crash filled the lab; Loki turned to see that the glass door had shattered with only a single hit from Mjolnir. Of course it had. 

“Time to go,” the god said shortly, firing his repulsors as his berserker of a brother came storming in. He could hear the wailing of the all-call, heard Steve shouting orders for the Avengers to assemble. And of course Thor, the only Avenger on hand who could fly, was hot on Loki’s tail out of the lab. 

It was a good thing he’d had practice in the suit, Loki thought, else he would have been shot out of the sky in an instant. The moment the tunnel ended (a good hundred feet above the New York streets), Loki sent the suit into a sharp dive, twisting off to loop around the Tower. At least he had one advantage: if there was one thing he was familiar with, it was Thor’s fighting style--straightforward and brutal. Easy enough to evade.

“Loki, I order you to land the suit and surrender immediately,” Steve’s voice crackled across the HUD speakers as Loki wove through the buildings of downtown Manhattan.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Cap,” the god grunted, dodging a head-on attack from Thor with ease. “I have somewhere to be.” He pulled up sharply, corkscrewing around a skyscraper so tight that his brother couldn’t keep up.

“If you come quietly--”

“You’ll what, Captain? Take me alive? I guarantee Asgard won’t keep me that way for long. They executed me last time, if you recall.” 

“Loki--!” It was Thor who spoke this time, in a low growl that only spurred the trickster on. Loki shot out of the forest of human infrastructure, pausing to get his bearings. Thor was coming about for another attack and it seemed that Barton and Romanov had finally gotten the quinjet in the air. Things were not looking good. 

“Jarvis, give me an update on that scan,” Loki said impatiently, ignoring the Avenger’s chatter on the other channel.

“Seventy-seven percent complete, sir,”

Loki snarled in frustration, diving out of the path of a gunfire that Romanov sent whizzing his way. 

“Have you picked up even the slightest trace?” he shouted. The quinjet was coming at him from one direction, Thor from another. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. 

“There are faint emanations from the New Mexico desert, but no direct source has been found--” Loki’s heart skipped a beat. _The Tesseract_. It was possible, in the time that the god had spent getting back to New York, that Tony had cracked, that Tony had led the Skrulls to their goal, that, perhaps, Tony was still considered useful...

“Jarvis, tighten search to the New Mexico area. Focus on the Trinity Test Site and Alamogordo,” the god ordered. The Avengers were nearly upon him; he cut power to his repulsors and dropped a good three hundred feet out of their range. He was keeping them at bay, but he just needed a little longer….

“Sir, I have located the signature of item M-1247. It is indeed in the city limits of Alamogordo, New Mexico.”

That was it. That was all Loki needed. He had Tony, and he had the Skrulls. “Thank you, Jarvis.” The god switched comms, back to the channel where the Avengers relayed orders. 

Natasha was talking rapid fire into her mouthpiece. “--Thor, he’s headed east, see if you can’t cut him off--”

“That won’t be necessary, my dear. I’ve got all I need,” Loki purred, flexing his fingers and reaching for magic stores that were still churning and uneasy. “If you care to join me for the fun, I’ll be at Trinity.”

“Trinity!? How does he--”

“Thor, he’s going to jump--”

But it was too late. Loki closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, let the magic swell and build until it felt like it might burst. It was an uneasy current, roiling like the sea in a storm, and it threatened a bumpy ride. But the god was out of options. With a whispered word, he vanished in the blink of an eye.

 


	13. Use the Force™, Tony

The god was deposited unceremoniously fifteen feet above his destination. He had no time to fire his repulsors before gravity took hold of him and he slammed shoulder-first into the pavement. A pained moan slithered between his lips. The nerves on his arms burned like they were on fire, protesting the overexertion before they were fully ready. But it didn’t matter to Loki, because he’d made it. Planting a fist on the blacktop, he pushed himself into a sitting position and surveyed the town. 

There wasn’t much to behold; he’d landed in the middle of a one-way street lined with shops and structures that hadn’t been updated in years. Painted white lines on either side denoted parking spaces, but only a handful were occupied. 

“Iron Man?” 

Loki turned to see a woman in police blues, frozen with a hand to her hip. The officer’s partner eyed them from a squad car not thirty feet away, braced for a fight. 

“Yes,” the god said matter-of-factly, doing his damndest to assimilate a Midgardian accent. “You may relax.”

“You materialized out of thin air.”

“Ah...yes. Experimental technology,” Loki lied easily. “Looks like it worked.”

The policewoman still eyed him warily, but let her hand drop. “What are you doing here?”

The scan graphic in the HUD flashed complete; Eihwaz’s signal was only a few miles from where they stood. As far as Loki’s intel went, they were less than fifteen miles from the Tesseract’s burial site. No doubt the town was crawling with Skrulls, and, should an altercation break out, that would put civilians in the line of fire. Tony would not be pleased. 

“A very important object has fallen into the wrong hands, and I--my team--has traced it here. I would advise you to get civilians to safety,” Loki answered.

He half expected the officer to resist, to demand proof, but the suit seemed to be enough to convince her. She reached for the walkie talkie on her shoulder, but no sooner had she pressed the talk button than a very loud, and very violent, explosion rocked the town. Loki, protected by the suit, merely raised an arm against the blast. The officers hit the deck, now shouting orders into their respect handsets. On the HUD, another blip appeared, indicating the explosion. And it was right on top of Eihwaz’s signature. 

The policewoman caught his eye. She mouthed, “Go!” waving her arm in the direction of the explosion. Loki needed no more encouragement; there was no doubt in his mind that Stark was involved in the blast, one way or another. He launched himself skyward, wondering if there would be anything left of Tony to find.

 

* * *

 

It was Afghanistan all over again. Tony lay shivering in a heap on a ragged carpet floor, head spinning and body aching. 

It hadn’t taken the Skrulls long to realize that Loki was no longer in Tony’s body. Tony had anticipated interrogation, probably torture, but he was drawing from a limited pool of experience. He had expected knives and water and fists. He hadn’t been prepared for the black hell-box they hooked him up to instead. 

The two electrodes on each temple that sent a current directly through his skull had been bad enough, but the billionaire learned quickly that they didn’t plan to beat anything out of him. No sooner than the current had started, Tony felt the all-too-familiar sensation of his mouth moving without his express command. But there was no sentient being that had taken control, no way to make his voice heard over the drone of the electric current. In that moment, Tony actually missed having Loki in his head. 

There was no way to resist the machine, and it forced Tony to lay out everything he held close to his chest. He heard himself tell the Skrulls about Loki, how Loki had returned to his body moments before capture. He told them about life in Avengers Tower and relayed his intimate knowledge of his teammate’s fighting techniques, listed their strengths and their weaknesses. And, perhaps most damning of all, he gave them the exact location of the Tesseract. That’s when they’d shut off the hellbox, sharing alien grins over his shivering frame. Tony had given them everything they needed. 

He was entirely shocked that they didn’t kill him right then and there, instead grabbing his limp body and dragging him from one holding cell to the next. Tony had a pretty good guess at their final destination.

Currently he lay upon the filthy carpet of his fourth prison, feeling angry and tired and trying to find the strength to pick himself up off the floor. He’d given the Skrulls what they wanted; he had to take it back, of course. But he wasn’t sure _how_. It was unlikely Loki would reach him in time to stop their offensive on the Tesseract. Hell, Loki didn't even know where he _was_. There was no way he'd be rescued in time. 

If Loki even planned on coming for him at all. 

Tony didn't want to believe it. After all they'd been through, after the hurried promises Loki had made before leaving, it was unthinkable that the god had been lying through it all. And yet...he wasn't called "Liesmith" for nothing. Loki could be halfway across the galaxy by now, for all Tony knew. Safe from Thanos, safe from Asgard, safe from the pathetic reach of the Avengers. Why would he even bother coming back?

It took everything within Tony to even sit up against the wall, and even that slight movement sent his head spinning. Overwhelming nausea welled up, and he emptied the contents of his stomach on the cold floor. Spent and exhausted, he collapsed back against the steel walls, panting hard. No, he couldn't rely on Loki to come through. He had to work through this himself. Tony may have been physically drained, but there were always options. 

Tony recalled the hours Loki had spent in the lab, legs crossed and breathing even. “ _Magic is, first and foremost, knowledge. Skill comes later.”_ And it had worked. A mortal body that had never before tapped its true potential had created light, had fielded energy, had blown up a rogue drone and saved half a continent. Surely it could get him out of this prison. It was just _knowledge_ , after all...

Grunting in pain, the inventor dragged himself into a sitting position again, crossing his legs as best he could. Every muscle protested, but he blocked out the pain. _He'd had worse,_ he told himself. From there, he closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and reached. 

It took time. The current was like water, fluid and soft and wholly uncatchable at first. Many failed attempts had Tony losing hope fast. _One last time_ , he told himself when the magic slipped through his fingers for the umpteenth time. _Just one more time..._

** Asgard. Royal chambers. Hard wooden floors and the smell of incense. An old spell, a simple spell, in a book before him. Mounting irritation. A hand on his shoulder. Calm words that soothed frustration. "Patience; you cannot force yourself to learn. Find the path and do it again." **

The memory that wasn't his surfaced, and for a moment, Tony was Loki. He remembered the coolness of the ash wood on his bare legs, could smell the cloying incense on warm air currents. The pressure of the hand on his shoulder was steadying, reassuring. Tony longed for a time that didn't belong to him, longed for sensations he had no right to. But they taught him, showed him the way. One last time, the inventor inhaled, and reached. 

And this time, he caught it. He had been wrong to think of the current as water, Tony realized; it was a snake that required the proper hand to tame. A single wrong move and it slipped between his fingers, but a skillful touch held it in place. Despite his desperation, the man remained calm, forcing his heart rate to steady. He couldn't lose it now. 

Next came the shaping, the coaxing of the magic to his whim. Tony tugged at it, kneaded it, until it flowed in a spherical current. He exhaled, and opened his eyes. 

There, hovering just inches above the ground, was a weak ball of blue-white light. 

"Ha!" the inventor couldn't hold back his shout of triumph (and relief, there was a great deal of that). Though it wasn't a master key to his prison, it at least allowed him to get his bearings. 

From the looks of it, he appeared to be in a bank vault. Small metal boxes lined the walls, all neatly numbered and locked. On the far wall, a heavy metal door with a complicated lock stood strong. Recycled air funneled through a small locked grate above it. Tony sucked in a lungful of air, held it, let it go. Yeah, definitely recycled air. The vault was sealed, then.

_Great_ , the inventor grumbled. He slowly got to his feet, steadying himself against the rows of safe deposit boxes at the back of the bank. The light followed him, rising slowly and coming to rest at eye-level. Its cold light cast everything in unearthly shades of blue, not unlike the glow of the arc reactor in his chest. He used the cold light to explore his prison, namely the massive door that had sealed him in. 

The locking mechanism was visible from the inside, making Tony’s inspection that much easier. He counted twenty-six titanium rods that encircled the mechanism, extending deep into the wall of the bank and holding the vault door in place. Naturally, pulling on the bars did not help retract them (but Tony couldn’t have lived with himself if he hadn’t tried). No luck there. 

Next, Tony probed at the cracks where the door met the vault. The cracks themselves were very palpable, and from the inside Tony thought he might be able to slip a credit card through them in places. 

The beginnings of an idea came to life in the inventor’s mind; he glanced back at the magic ball of light, focusing hard on manipulating its shape. Slowly, with great effort on Tony’s part, it began to twist, elongate, and flatten. Sweat beaded on his forehead, dripped down his neck and plastered his t-shirt to his skin. But, with patience, the orb soon came to resembled a paper thin sheet of crisp blue light. 

In the hours Loki had spent practicing in the lab, he had shown Tony a number of spells (not always on purpose; there was no hiding anything when you shared a body), not all of them harmless. The inventor recalled one incidence of Loki creating a similar ball of light, coaxing it to grow in size and intensity. Eventually it had exploded in a miniature pyrotechnic display, showering colorful sparks on the lab’s concrete floor. 

_Some of these spells seems useful, but I can’t see the point in fireworks,_ Tony noted. Loki had simply smiled, recreating another ball of light in the palm of his hand. With whispered words he fed the orb, brought it to its previous size and then surpassed even that, until it was the size of a basketball. 

_Is there anything in this lab you don’t care too much about?_ the god asked, tossing the glowing ball from hand to hand. 

_There is the demonstration area over there,_ Tony drew Loki’s attention to a raised platform surrounded by bits and pieces of discarded suit prototypes. The god zeroed in on his target. 

_Perfect._ With a flick of his wrist, he sent the orb spinning across the open lab. It careened into the pile of junk, and the moment it did it erupted into a wave of light and heat and molten metal. Loki dove for cover behind the couch, grinning as the bright sparks of the glowing sphere of doom rained down on his head. By the time the dust had settled he was laughing outright. 

_I was worshipped as the god of fire for a reason._

Tony couldn’t hide how impressed he’d been, regarding the disastrous demo area with a twinge of jealousy. _No, I see how that spell might be useful._

It was after that very spell that Tony had noticed the first delicate seiðr burns on his skin; he was sure if Loki had put any more energy into the great ball of fire, the burns would have been worse. And he was certain that if was to use the same spell to blow the safe off of its hinges, the result would be an aggravation of the still-healing burns on his arms. But it was blow the safe or wait for the Skrulls to finish him off. Not surprisingly, Tony picked the safe. 

He manipulated the glowing sheet into the space between the door and the wall, feeling his way to the locking mechanism. When he could push the sheet no further, he focused his mind on pumping it full of energy, engorging it on magic. Very soon his arms began to ache, the scarlet vines growing angrier. Tony pushed on, doing everything in his power to keep the magical sheet stable. And finally, when he couldn’t hold it anymore, when he had no more energy to charge the spell with, he flicked his wrist to release it all, and ducked. 

The explosion was magnificent, a sudden discharge of heat and air that flung Tony against the back of the vault and knocked the wind from his lungs. Smoke filled the space, then rushed out as the mangled vault door fell open. There was a crack between the wall and the door, allowing the smoke--and Tony--to escape. 

Arms smarting from the fresh seiðr burn, he pushed himself up and staggered out into the bank’s corridor, coughing to clear his lungs from the smoke. Visibility was zero, breathability was zero, and right now his chances of escaping looked very slim. He could already hear the Skrulls, shouting to each other in their alien language, as they rushed to contain him. 

Frantically, Tony looked around, trying to see something through this damn smoke that he could use to defend himself. He settled on an office chair right outside the blown safe door. 

His burned arms screamed as he lifted the chair, but he ignored it. _I’ve had worse_ , he told himself for the thousandth time. _I’ve had worse_. The first skrull reared its still-human-looking head through the smoke, and Tony threw the chair with all his might. He heard the alien screech in pain, heard the chair splinter into pieces, and something metallic clattered to the floor. 

_Gun,_ the inventor thought, and dove to the ground. His fingers wrapped around something cool and metal, and he drew the weapon to him. It was not the intuitive design Stark had expected--he easily identified the barrel, the stock, but the trigger was nowhere to be found. Loud footsteps materialized into a pair of angry looking Skrulls. Without hesitation, Tony drove the barrel of his weapon into the stomach of the first one, and banged it against the shins of the second, before rolling out of the way of their subsequent weapon’s fire. 

He came up on his knees, aiming the weapon, fingers feeling for a trigger. Still nothing. The first Skrull was coming to, staggering to his feet, and the second and third had already recovered. Behind Tony, he heard more footsteps. Trapped. 

Tony glanced around wildly and caught sight of the intake vent for the safe, only a few feet off the floor. He knocked it open with his gun, prayed he was just small enough for the rectangular opening, and dove through. 

Mercifully, he fit. There wasn’t much space with both Tony and the mysterious gun inside, but it offered him momentary cover from the squad of Skrulls outside. It gave him time to look the weapon over, feel it out, find that thrice-cursed trigger. The barrel of one of the weapons appeared at the edge of the vent. In desperation, Tony squeezed where the trigger _should_ have been--and a round of energy blasts burst from the tip. One of the Skrulls screamed in pain and withdrew, while Tony whooped victoriously. If there was one thing he knew, it was _weapons_. 

The victory was short lived, however. Not long after Tony discovered the hidden trigger, a new problem presented itself. The vent was getting hot. Very, very, _very_ hot. His constant shooting kept the Skrulls at bay, but it was also roasting him alive. He could keep firing and cook himself like a Thanksgiving turkey, or he could stop firing and be punched full of more holes than Swiss cheese. Neither option was very appealing. Trapped. _Again_.

The decision seemed an impossible one to make for the inventor, so the gun made it for him. As Tony went to squeeze the trigger again it sputtered and died in his hands, overheated. This was the end, then. He looked up, caught sight of the weapon that would be his death, closed his eyes against the blast--

\--and it never came. Instead, he was met with a chorus of shrieks, and gunfire that wasn’t directed down his vent. The chaos outside lasted all of thirty seconds, in which Tony didn’t dare move or make a sound.

And then, just as suddenly as the commotion had begun, there was silence. Roaring, thunderous, silence. Then, “Stark?”

Tony had never thought he would be so relieved to hear that voice. The same voice that had welcomed him to Stark Tower all those months ago, as Chitauri streamed down on New York City. Silvery smooth, lilting with a distinctly alien accent, but this time sounding so _worried_. Two lights appeared at the mouth of the vent, peering in at him. Something about the whole fiasco struck a chord with the inventor--perhaps it was the fear of certain death, or perhaps it was the knowledge of who was behind those lights, but all of a sudden Tony was overcome with slightly hysterical laughter. He dropped the gun and crawled on his hands and knees out of the vent, still cackling. Iron clad hands reached to pull him up, and the Mark V’s faceplate slid up to reveal worried green eyes and a thin mouth twisted with concern. 

“Are you alright, Stark?” Loki asked, supporting the inventor’s weight as he regained his footing.

“Yeah, Loki, yeah, I’m fine,” he gasped. “Never better.” He cleared his throat, finally wrestling the stress-induced response under control. “Took you long enough.”

The god’s mouth twitched upwards. “It was a long way from Norway.” 

He pushed away from the suit and Loki released him, allowing him to stand on his own. “Yeah, well, better late than never,” he said, stretching his arms above his head. Loki’s eyes widened suddenly, and Tony whirled around, expecting a threat from behind. “What is it?”

“Your arms!” the god gasped, reaching out to take them in his hands. Tony glanced down to see a familiar pattern of delicate crimson web reaching nearly to his elbows, inflamed in a way he hadn’t seen since the Latverian drone incident.

“I’ve just accepted that my skin will be covered in scars,” he answered, trying to shrug Loki off. The other held fast, retracting the armor around his own hands and running fingers over the seiðr burns with care. 

“What did you do?” Loki wondered. Tony puffed out his chest. 

“I only used magic on my own and blew the door off a bank vault. Nothing big.”

Loki looked shocked. “You used magic?”

“What, like it’s hard?” Tony laughed. “I was learning the whole time you were making coffee mugs glow and blowing up my work station. I picked up a few things.”

“I am...impressed,” the god said, “but must emphasise what a stupid thing to do that was.”

“I have cornered the market on stupid things to do.”

“Yes, it would seem so,” Loki muttered. He looked down at Tony’s arm, passing his palm over the worst of the burns. Before the inventor’s eyes, the angry red welts shrank and disappeared entirely. Tony gawked.

“What did you do?”

“I brought my own body back from the dead, Stark. Healing the wounds of others is simple by comparison.” 

Tony pulled his arms away, rubbing the new flesh. “Maybe warn a guy before you go magicking his wounds,” he said, and looked around the hall. The bodies of twelve Skrulls were littered on the ugly carpet, some with smoking repulsor wounds, and some--well, some lying in pieces on the ground. Daylight filtered in through cracks in the ceiling, no doubt produced by Tony’s explosion. Faint light at the end of the corridor, reflecting off of shards of broken glass, denoted the bank’s (and Loki’s) entrance. “Where are we?” 

“New Mexico.”

Tony might have guessed. He rubbed the back of his neck. “They’re after the Tesseract.”

“I would assume so.”

The inventor flinched as guilt hit him like a wrecking ball. It was _worse_ than Afghanistan, then. At least in the caves he’d fought. For four long months he had spat in their faces, resisted their attempts to pry Jericho’s secrets from him. It had only taken an hour or two with the Skrulls for them to get what they needed. This was his fault, all his fault--

“Stark,” Loki said firmly, putting one hand under his chin and forcing their eyes to meet. “This is not your fault. 

Tony wrinkled his nose. “I never said it was.” The god rolled his eyes. 

“Have you forgotten that I was so recently in that head of yours? I know you. You didn’t do this willingly. You didn’t _give this up_ willingly. They took what they wanted, and there was nothing you could have done differently.”

“Yes, but--”

“No, no ‘but’. Not even _I_ am a match for the mind sifter.” Tony raised an eyebrow, prompting a classic Loki smirk. “You, with your fragile human brain, didn’t stand a chance.” 

The inventor batted Loki’s hand away. “Gee, thanks for that comfort.” It _was_ a comfort, despite the god’s clearly facetious tone. Stolen memories of the time in Thanos’s realm gave credence to Loki’s assurance. There was no sense wallowing when there was work to be done. “But point taken. Now give me my suit back.” Loki’s smirk turned to a triumphant smile and he complied, hitting the release on the Mark V and stepping out into the carnage as Tony took his place.

“So our next move...” he said as the suit closed around him. _Gods_ it felt good to be in control. “...is going after the Skrulls.”

“Not alone. Your friends should be on their way.” Loki reported, looking back to the front of the bank. “It would be wise to wait to engage until they arrive. The Tesseract is buried deep; it will take the Skrulls time to recover it."

Tony agreed, but didn't like the thought of sitting on his hands until the cavalry charged in. “I'm not willing to take chances with the Tesseract. We've got at least an hour until my team gets here, and there’s a civilian population within range.”

“And I have already taken steps to evacuating them.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Have you now? Then I’ll take the suit and help it along. You are going to go back down to the missile range to make damn sure the Skrulls don’t activate the Tesseract. Take this." Tony handed the god a comm from the suit (in the heat of battle, it was never good to be without communication. Tony prided himself on being prepared for every situation). 

"And _how_ do you propose I do that?" Loki said dryly, taking the comm and fitting it into his ear.

"You'll think of something. You're good at stalling," Tony said with a shrug, and let his faceplate snap shut. "Just do it _discreetly_. We’ll rendezvous at Trinity when the Avengers arrive."

"I'll keep in touch," the god purred, and, with a snap of his fingers, vanished into thin air. 

Tony was left staring at the spot where Loki had been standing moments before. “Someday,” he said under his breath, before stepping over the prostrate corpses of the Skrulls and out into the streets.

 


	14. The Gods at Holey Trinity

It was exactly seventy-two minutes later that the quinjet carrying the rest of the Avengers finally came into comm range. In those seventy-two minutes, the state police had managed (with Tony's help) to get a good number of civilians to shelters or out of town, but there was still a long way to go. At present, Tony was perched atop a hotel that lined Alamogordo's main street, eyeing both the evacuation effort (a line of cars stretched to Route 54) and a sky of darkening clouds that promised a thunder god.

"This is Avengers, calling for Iron Man to stand down," Steve's voice crackled into Tony's helmet.

"Good to hear your voice, Cap," the inventor responded, straightening from his crouch. 

"Tony?" The captain sounded surprised.

"In my own flesh, finally. Were you expecting someone else?"

"Yes, actually. Where is Loki?"

Loki, who had made little use of the com since Tony had given it to him, joined the conversation. "Oh, that's no mystery, Captain. I'm at Trinity, like I told you." 

"Stark, you are ordered to Loki's position to--"

"Relax, Rogers. He's with me."

"So now you're working _with_ Loki," Natasha accused. "What has been going _on_ with you?"

"It's...a long story. Our dear god of mischief is ensuring that the Tesseract doesn't fall into the wrong hands."

"By putting it _in_ his hands."

"I have no interest in the Tesseract." Loki sounded offended that they would even suggest that. 

"I can vouch for him."

"Sorry, Tony, but with the way you've been acting lately, your word isn't enough to go on. I want you to go after Loki and hold position," Steve said. "We're ten minutes out, but Thor is flying ahead, ETA three minutes; you will brief him on the situation and wait for us to arrive."

"Aye aye, Cap'n," Tony said, mock-saluting the air for nobody's benefit other than his own. Thor arriving first was good--he was the most sympathetic to Loki’s plight. With a last glance at the continuing evacuation below, he took to the skies, racing off in the direction of the Trinity test site.

Loki was sitting on a large rock when Tony arrived, studying his fingernails and looking bored. His skin was smudged with dirt, and something wet and green and unpleasant-looking clung to his tunic. Not three klicks behind the ridge on which the god sat, smoke rose from what Tony could only assume was the Skrull excavation.

"Loki, I thought we agreed _not to engage_ ," Tony hissed as he dropped to the ground, flipping his faceplate up.

Despite his disinterested expression, there was a smile in the god's voice when he responded. "You told me to stall, Stark; so I stalled."

"The smoke?"

"One of their drilling devices mysteriously malfunctioned."

"The green...stuff?"

Loki looked up, something evil glinting in his eye. "One of their scouts got a little too close. But don't worry; he won't be missed before your friends arrive."

Tony huffed a sigh. "As long as they don't know we're here--" He was interrupted by a fantastic clap of thunder that shook the ground they stood on. Loki rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet. 

"Well _now_ they know," he sighed, crossing his arms and staring expectantly at the sky. And there was Thor, all flowing gold locks and billowing red cape. 

Tony tilted his head. "Thor never really did get the hang of 'stealth missions'." His point was only emphasised as Asgard's golden prince slammed into the ground before the pair, sending out a shockwave that rippled down the ridge. He straightened, slowly, and leveled his hammer at Loki. 

"You."

The trickster made a show of looking around, finally letting his eyes rest on his brother with an unwitting expression. "Me?"

Thor's jaw clenched. "You should be dead."

"Oh? Didn't Father tell you? He decided to dump me on Midgard instead. So thoughtful, he was."

With surprising speed, Thor crossed the space between them and gripped Loki's neck in his hand. "Liar!"

"Hey, woah!" Tony shouted, rushing to stand between the two brothers. "For all the bullshit he's given you in the past, this is actually true." Thor glanced at the inventor, as if he hadn't noticed Tony's presence when he'd first landed. With a disgruntled sound, the god dropped his gasping brother. Loki sucked in a deep lungful of air, one hand on the bright red marks blooming around his neck. 

"I just got my body back; I would _appreciate_ it if you didn't try to maim it too soon."

"What is he _talking_ about?" Thor snarled, fingers working on Mjolnir's handle. Tony raised his hands in a placating manner.

"Well, see, as I said, that's a rather long story--"

"Then make it short, or I will make sure he does not escape Asgard's justice again."

"I _didn’t--_ " Loki started, but Tony shushed him with a look.

"Shut up. You'll only make things worse." With a glare to match his brother's, Loki fell silent. 

And so Tony launched into a summarized version of the events of the past few weeks, his verbal pace increasing as Thor's scowl deepened. It occurred to Tony just how crazy all of this sounded, and he remembered Steve's distrust--not because of Loki, but because of _him_. Because of his erratic mood swings and shut-in tendencies ever since New York. A liar and convicted criminal, and a liar and an unreliable teammate. The pair of them didn't make the most trustworthy of duos. 

There were several beats of silence when Tony finally finished, in which he realized he was instinctively flinching away from the He-Man of Asgard, waiting for Thor to finally grow fed up. But the god did nothing, just stared him down, breathing evenly through his nose. And then, finally, "Prove it."

"Wh...what?" Of all the things Tony had been expecting, this was the last on his list. It made sense, of course, to want proof, but what proof could he even offer...?

But Loki understood. "Eihwaz," he said aloud, and turned to Tony. "Do you still have the runestone?"

Oh, yes. The stone. In his shoe. Tony scrambled to pry the solleret off of his right foot, nearly losing his balance in the process, and stood up hastily, holding the faintly glowing runestone in his hand. "Taa-daa."

With careful fingers, Thor plucked the small round runestone from Tony’s outstretched palm. His thumb caressed the worn rune carved into its face. A strange look replaced his deep scowl. When Thor finally turned to his brother, it was as if Tony had disappeared again. 

“The last time I saw this stone, you were throwing it at my head and telling me what an idiot I was,” the thunder god said, voice soft. Loki’s glare didn’t slip, but his defensive posture relaxed.

“That could have been one of many instances of our childhood,” he answered. “You gave it to Mother, I noticed.”

Thor flipped the stone off of his thumb into the air, watching it twist, and caught it again. “For safe keeping. I was correct in assuming you’d want it back eventually.”

“To be fair, I never asked for it back. It was a parting gift before Daddy Dearest lopped off my head.” Loki lifted his chin for emphasis, baring the slim white scar that encircled his neck and served as a testament to what had happened in that courtyard. Thor flinched slightly and handed the stone to Loki. 

“But you’re alive now, yes? And you’re going to stay that way.”

“He won’t if we don’t do something about that,” Tony interrupted, having been watching the distant Skrulls as the brothers talked. It worried him that the distant Skrull dig was no longer smoking from Loki’s sabotage; the aliens were getting somewhere. “There’s no nuke to help us this time if they get that the portal open.”

Both gods turned to follow his gaze, and Loki made a face. “Shall I go _stall_ for you again, Stark?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Steve’s voice said from behind them. Tony turned to see him cresting the hill, spangled in his signature sparkly uniform, flanked by Natasha who wore an infinitely more appropriate desert version of her usual jumpsuit. Bruce trailed behind them, looking out of place among the heroes in his relatively normal clothes. “Hawkeye is circling the quinjet at low altitude to keep us updated; we landed a ways off so we wouldn’t be noticed. Thor, what’s the verdict?” Steve punctuated that last remark with a hard look at Loki and Tony. 

“The enemy lies behind us, not before us. A race of aliens called the Skrulls. My brother is willing to help us fight against them.”

“ _Stall_ ,” Loki emphasised. “You said it yourself. I’m not dying again today.”

Thor ignored his brother. “We can trust him not to turn against us, that much I am sure of. The Skrulls are not his friends.”

“More aliens. Great,” Bruce said, coming to a stop beside Tony. 

Natasha put a hand to the comm in her ear, matching Steve’s pace as he marched to the edge of the ridge.. “Barton, are you getting this?” 

“Every word. You guys might want to hurry the briefing up, though; I can see the dig site from here, and I’m not liking how deep this hole is getting.” 

“We need a plan of attack,” Steve said. He turned to Tony. “What are we up against?” 

“Oh, so we’re trusting me now, are we?” 

Steve gave him a look. “Stark.”

“Fine, fine.” He shared a long look with Loki over the team, who rolled his eyes and gave the smallest of nods, before clearing his throat. “I do have a plan, naturally--one of us has to be prepared. By the way, Bruce,” Tony turned to the man beside him, “I couldn’t be more glad to see you here; we will _definitely_ be needing a code green for all this.” He turned back to the rest of the team, and they huddled around him. “Here’s how it’s going to go down.”

 


	15. Goodbye Blue Sky

The soft clouds from earlier that afternoon had morphed into monstrous-looking thunderheads by the time the Avengers were in position. Though it was barely midday, the desert had grown dark and eerie. Beneath the cloud cover, the Skrulls scuttled about a forty-meter deep hole in the desert, unawares. At the base of the excavation site, the Tesseract hummed ominously in its spiderweb casing of titanium and steel. Thunder rumbled distantly, covering the sound of the quinjet as it flew just above the cloud line, out of visual range.

“I count maybe...fifty of them?” Clint said into his mouthpiece, squinting at the figures running below. “Definitely enough to be a threat. And that’s just above the site. Who knows how many are actually inside the pit. They’ve got some sort of turrets around the perimeter of the excavation site; our evil sorcerer's intel seems trustworthy so far. You need to get just inside the defense line without falling down the hole.”

“The _evil sorcerer_ can do that with his eyes closed,”Loki responded over the headset. 

“Just to be safe,” Steve said, “we need a distraction. Thor, are you in position?”

“Aye,” the god answered over the comm, hidden somewhere in the stewing bank of clouds. 

“Good.” Steve turned to the rest of the team gathered around Loki, all of them hunkered behind the ridge. “To recap: Clint and Thor will draw the attention of the Skrulls, giving us a clean entry point. The moment we materialize--”

“It’ll probably be something more akin to falling, actually,” Loki spoke up from the back of the group. “So brace yourselves.”

“--Banner, Hulk will take the south turret. Natasha and I will take the east one. Thor and Clint will come around and take the north and west towers, respectively. And Tony, you and Loki are going to do everything in your power to keep these Skrulls from activating the Tesseract. Is everyone clear?” 

Tony cocked a cheeky eyebrow. “Considering _I’m_ the mastermind behind all this--” 

“That’s a yes,” the captain cut in. He pointed to the resident Trickster god. “We’ve got one shot to surprise the enemy, and if there really is another Chitauri army on the other side of the Tesseract, perhaps only one shot at all.”

“But no pressure, right?” Bruce said dryly.

“Hawkeye, Thor, lay down the covering fire.”

“With pleasure.” Barton said. With practiced precision, Clint dropped the quinjet into visual range, and opened fire on the turrets below. Thor followed suit, casting down an apocalyptic level of lightning on the excavation below. The rest of the Avengers huddled closer, until their shoulders formed a nearly perfect ring.  

“Loki,” Steve ordered, looking into the god’s glittering eyes, “ _now_.”

On cue, the trickster pulled the magic he needed to his fingertips, energized by the fact that he was finally up to full caliber. How he had _missed_ having such power at his beck and call. A bubble of magic, green and strong, expanded outwards on his command to envelop the remaining Avengers. The group vanished from the ridge, reappearing a fraction of a second later behind the turret defense line. The group fell through nothingness, barely landing on their feet as the transportation spell ebbed. It was chaos almost immediately. 

Loki was up at once, assessing the battlefield that lay before him; Skrulls, no longer wearing their human disguises, turned from the quinjet’s attack and Thor’s lightning, catching sight of the intruders. With an alien shout, they converged, weapons spitting fire. The god moved to engage, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. 

“The others have got it. Let’s get to the Tesseract,” Tony shouted over the bedlam. Behind them, Steve and Nat were already running full tilt for their target, while the Hulk made his first appearance since the Battle of New York. The sight of the green behemoth stopped the Skrulls in their tracks. 

“Right,” Loki breathed, more than happy to leave the monster to his work. “To the Tesseract.” He grabbed Iron Man by his bicep, called the magic to him once more, and teleported them to the base of the hole. 

He felt the familiar hum of the Cube in his bones when they materialized, and it grated on him like fingers on a chalkboard. It was a magical dissonance, the staticky feeling in your legs when they’ve been idle for too long, the bad taste in your mouth when you wake hungover the morning after. While Tony went off, immediately rushing to engage the Skrulls tending to the Tesseract at the base of the pit, Loki took a faltering step in an attempt to get his bearings with the aggravating background noise. 

A blow to the god’s back brought him back to reality. The jarring mental din caused by a magical relic from the beginning of the universe faded considerably when pitted against physical discomfort. Loki whipped around to face his attackers, pulling his throwing knives from their sheaths at his side, and thrust the blades into the Skrull’s soft flesh. The alien fell to the ground, writhing in pain from its gushing wounds, but two more quickly took its place. Loki turned to them next.

Like the enemies above, the majority of the Skrulls did not bear human disguises; they fought in their natural forms, all green skin and pointy ears. All but one that Loki could see, one that was currently working furiously by the Tesseract’s station at the center of the pit. _Lajek_. He still maintained his plain human facade, having only swapped the fancy suit for much more practical lightweight armor. 

Loki’s blood boiled at the sight of the Skrull. He quickly dispatched the two aliens around him, clearing a path to the Cube. Towards Lajek. He dodged haphazard attacks from the green-skinned adversaries with ease, downing them with a single thrust from his knives, unwilling to be swayed from his target. The human-looking Skrull looked up to see the angry god storming towards him, and the blood drained from his face. He turned to run, but Loki sent a pulse of magic his way, knocking the human-looking Skrull to the ground. With catlike grace the god leapt up the pile of rubble, dodged the burning Tesseract in its pedestal, and planted his feet on either side of the Skrull’s skinny body. 

“You should have stayed dead,” Loki snarled, raising his arm to deliver the killing blow. 

Lajek reacted at the last moment, wrapping his right leg around the god’s calf and twisted out from underneath the god, nearly flipping Loki off of his feet. “I could say the same to you.” He came up on both feet, reaching for the gun strapped to his hip. But Loki was too fast, regaining his balance and knocking the weapon aside. It skittered along the uneven ground, coming to rest a dozen feet away. 

Lajek glared up at Loki, slowly backing up. “Even if you kill me now, it won’t stop the inevitable. Thanos knows you’re alive, and he _will_ come looking for you.”

Loki tilted his head. “Your family was his last vestige of power on Midgard. Without a foothold here, I am untouchable. Or do you really think he’d brave a direct assault on one of the Nine Realms, and risk engaging the Asgardians, all to get to me?” 

The Skrull bared his teeth. “Thanos cannot be stopped. It’s only a matter of time before the Golden Realm crumbles!” 

“We’ll see about that,” Loki said, and smiled wickedly. “Or at least, _I’ll_ see. _You_ will be dead.” 

The god lunged at Lajek, knife poised to make the killing blow, but it never hit its mark. Lajek, desperate now, pulled a weapon from seemingly out of nowhere. He squeezed the trigger, firing wildly in a last-ditch effort. 

The first shot missed. The second shot grazed Loki’s side, eliciting a pained gasp from the god and setting the blade mere inches off its mark. The third hit LOki square in the ribs right as his knife sank deep into the the flesh above Lajek’s collarbone, missing his carotid by mere inches.  The god was knocked aside as Lajek howled in pain, blood spurting from the wound.  Loki was down for only a moment, simply dazed by the unexpected hit, but by the time he regained his bearings, Lajek was nowhere to be found in the melee of the pit. 

“Anytime you want to take on your fair share of Skrulls, let me know!” Tony grunted over the comm. Loki turned to see the Iron Man surrounded by the aliens, holding his own but definitely slipping. With a last, frustrated sound, Loki grabbed his remaining blade and rushed to the inventor’s aid. 

The direct hit he’d sustained had been absorbed mostly by his armor; Stark could say all he wanted about leather and metal, but it stood up impressively against particle weapons. 

“I saw Lajek,” Loki hissed as he rejoined the fray, angry at himself for losing the bastard. He vented that rage on the surrounding enemy, stabbing at anything that moved and leaving a trail of bleeding and dying Skrulls behind him. 

“That’s great,” Tony panted. “But a single Skrull is the least of our worries among fifty of them!” He launched into the air, activating the paldron missiles on his shoulder. “Get down!” 

“Even if it was one particularly trying Skrull?” Loki wondered, dropping to the ground as Tony unleashed the barrage of missiles. The screams of injured Skrulls rose up in time with the their detonation. 

“They’re all pretty aggravating.” Tony dropped back to the ground, hitting another Skrull square in the chest with his repulsors. “Are we even making a dent in their numbers?” 

It sure didn’t feel like it. Every time Loki cut one down, twelve more appeared out of nowhere. What they lacked in strength they made up for in sheer numbers. And they weren’t even fighting skillfully; their shots were off-kilter, their technique clumsy and haphazard. The entire strategy, it seemed, was to overwhelm the Avengers on amount of soldiers alone. 

This was a red flag. Numbers didn’t win battles if the foot soldiers could barely hold a weapon. The whole scene seemed less of a calculated maneuver and more of a distraction. 

On cue, Tony cried out. “Shit, the Tesseract!” 

There was a desperation in the inventor’s voice that made Loki’s skin grow cold. The god threw the body of the Skrull he had dispatched aside in time to catch sight of an injured Lajek, clutching at his bleeding shoulder, grinning viciously as he scaled the rubble to the Tesseract’s station. Lost in the melee of the bigger battle, neither Loki nor Tony had noticed the poisonous wallflower sneaking past them towards the Tesseract. Lajek and Loki locked eyes across the pit, and the god felt his heart sink. 

“No!” Loki roared, arm outstretched to magically knock the Skrull away, but it was too late.

Still smiling like a maniac, Lajek flipped a switch on the console and activated the device. 

An energy pulse from deep within the cube surged upward, reaching for the sky to herald in the end of Midgard. Beyond that door, lying in wait, was another army, another ten thousand beings who would drag Loki screaming back to the beast. Memories of Thanos roared to the forefront of his mind.

** Blood on the ground, on his hands, seeping from wounds he couldn’t heal. A coldness so bone deep not even his brightest fire could warm it. Clawing at the frigid walls of a cell he couldn’t see, screaming until his voice failed him. Desperation, madness, a pliant willingness to do anything if he’d just make it stop, have mercy, have pity. And underneath it all, the haunting, never-ending laugh of the beast, resonating in his mind like a song on repeat. **

The god didn’t think as the Tesseract opened, didn’t pause to weigh his options. He only reacted, planted his feet and pulled from his own well of magic, throwing his hands outward and casting a barrier to hold the portal shut. The Cube’s energy warred with his own, hitting the barrier like a whale in a fisherman’s net. Loki gasped, nearly overcome by the intensity of the Infinity Stone’s power. He felt himself slipping, felt his feet sliding back against the dirt, as the Tesseract’s energy pushed mightily against the barrier he just barely held in place. It was contained, the portal held closed, but for how long? The Stone was something ancient, something immortal beyond even the gods, beyond the beings of flesh and blood. It was infinite, eternal, nearly sentient. What was a god in the presence of the Stone?

Someone was screaming, and it took Loki far too long to realize that was him. His arms burned in protest, his own impressive stores of magic nearly depleted before the power of the Tesseract. Sweat beaded on his forehead, plastering his long hair to his face. Everything in him told him to let go, to give up; surely death would take him if he kept this up much longer. 

But it was the knowledge of what waited on the other side, of a fate worse than death, that allowed him to hold on. He gritted his teeth, stifled his voice, and pushed back with all he had. 

Someone else was shouting through the comm in his ear, loud and almost panicked. “Loki!” A series of very loud, messy explosions punctuated Stark’s words.

“I’m...fine…” he grunted unconvincingly in response, wondering if his voice was loud enough to be heard. 

“Loki,” the voice was beside him now, softer but still urgent. The god opened his eyes to see the glowing slits of the Iron Man suit staring back at him. “Tell me what to do.”

“The Skrulls?” he panted. Tony’s faceplate pulled back, revealing anxious eyes. 

“Dead,” he said matter-of-factly. “Or, the ones down here at least. I made sure that activating this fucking Cube was the last thing Lajek did.”

Loki smiled at the thought, but it vanished quickly. His grip on the Tesseract’s power was dwindling faster; a shuddering moan wracked his body, and his barrier slipped just that much. 

“Loki, you’ve got to tell me how to help,” Tony said urgently, retracting the armor around his hands. “You can’t do this on your own.”

** Asgard. A dank prison cell. Water dripping in the corner, pooling at his bare and ragged feet. Small, strong hands pressing a small stone into his palm.  **

“There’s nothing you _can_ do,” the god said, voice strained. Sweat dripped down from his hairline, stinging his eyes. He could not, _would_ not, risk Stark’s life. 

“I just blew up a bank vault didn’t I?” Tony countered with a forced laugh. “I can help, charred flesh be damned.” 

“This….isn’t a bank vault, Stark,” his voice was weak, and dwindled off into nothingness. Drawing in air was becoming difficult. 

“If you can’t hold this portal shut, then I’m dead anyway,” Tony insisted. “So tell. Me. What. To. Do.”

** Fierce grey-blue eyes holding his gaze. “Don’t do this on your own.” **

Loki looked into the inventor’s face, lined and worried and yet filled with resolve. “Okay,” he relented, shifting his feet to get a better stance. “Okay.” 

Tony planted his feet beside the god’s, outstretched his arms. “So how do you do this?” 

“Your magic is a net,” Loki explained, voice barely above a whisper now. His arms shook from exertion, but somehow he held out.“You must….cast it over the Tesseract.” 

“Easy enough,” Tony said, before sucking in a breath as the Tesseract fought him. He squeaked in pain. “Shit. This fucking hurts.”

Loki couldn’t help but laugh, albeit weakly. “I did warn you.” The mortal’s contribution, however small, was noticeable; the barrier was that much stronger, the Tesseract’s onslaught lessened by just that much. His arms steadied, his breathing evened out. Faced with closing the portal together, it seemed…. _doable_.

“So what now?” the inventor asked through gritted teeth. Loki squinted at the nearly blinding cerulean light that was the Tesseract at the center of his barrier. 

“Now,” he said, planting his feet and squaring his shoulders. “We push it back. One step at a time.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me this will be easy.” 

“Not in the slightest. On three?”

Tony only groaned in response. Loki took at as a yes. “Right, on three. One, two, three!”

Together, they took one step towards the Tesseract, pushing back against its power with all they had. Their efforts earned them a full foot of ground.

“Again,” the inventor said weakly. “If we rest too long, we lose our momentum.”

So Loki counted down again, and again they gained another few inches. There was nothing in his body that didn’t hurt at this point, but still they managed to take a third step. And a fourth. And a fifth. Each time, they successfully regained ground, and each time the Tesseract fought a little harder. It was pushing two similarly charged magnets together; the closer they got, the harder it became to move them any further. 

“We’re almost there,” Tony said. Perhaps it was that he did not bear the majority of the barrier’s weight, or that he had not been fighting it as long, but his voice sounded stronger than Loki’s. The god could hardly keep his eyes from closing, so tired he was, and if he chose to force them open the edges of his vision were tinged with black. The inventor seemed to recognize that Loki was fading. “Just a little longer; we’re almost _there_.”

Loki counted them off again, but found he couldn’t get his tongue to form the words. It was all he could do to remain standing at this point. He wasn’t sure from where he drew strength to continue. 

“One more time,” the inventor croaked after their eighth push. “Just once more, Loki.” 

He could take one more step, the god thought. It would be his last, but he could do it. With Tony helping, he could do it. “One more,” he mouthed, unable to find the air to speak. “One more.” 

Tony stepped, and then Loki followed, the pain growing to an unignorable crescendo. He was screaming again, but something else was screaming too. The screams were the same in pitch and fever, a defiant cry in the face of death, before being silenced for good. The pair finally forced the portal shut at last.

And after the ninth step, Loki collapsed. 

 


	16. Comfortably Numb

Tony would never admit it, and at a later date was quoted by one reporter as saying he’d “had steaks tougher than [the Tesseract]”, but in reality he thought he’d rather like to be comatose. Only a few hours he’d been in control of his body and already he was ready to drift back into a formless void. He didn’t even want to glance down at his exposed lower arms; judging by the searing pain, he knew he’d find them to be a shade of scarlet that rivaled the Mark V’s paint job. 

When the Cube finally relented, the last vestiges of the portal collapsing under the combined forces of Loki and Tony, the barrier itself dissolved so quickly that the inventor nearly lost his balance. 

“Tony, what’s going on down there?” Steve shouted over the comm. It was the first thing the inventor had heard over the HUD since the Tesseract nearly doomed them all. Tony figured it had to do with the huge amount of interference that came from standing twenty feet from an active Infinity Stone. 

“Nothing much,” he huffed. “We just, y’know, saved the world. Again.” 

“Are you alright?” 

It took Tony a moment to answer that question, still disoriented from the fight. He was fine, but _Loki--_

“Shit, no Loki’s down,” the inventor said, remembering all at once. 

“Loki?” Thor broke in, voice tense. Tony ignored him, too focused on the crumpled heap of green and black only meters from him.

The Cube’s dying moments had been a whirlwind of blinding azure light and a disorienting noise; he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten the way Loki struggled at the end. Somehow he hadn’t factored in an ending that left the trickster unresponsive in the dirt. If anyone was going to collapse, it should have been Tony, the weak-frail-sickly-mortal human. 

Tony pressed two bare fingers to Loki’s neck, seeking a pulse. It was there, thready and worryingly light, but at least the god was alive--though, judging by the black-edged burns that twisted up his neck and around his wrists, and the way his breathing hitched, he wouldn’t be for long. 

And the problems just kept coming. A small warning light lit up across the HUD’s main screen. When the Tesseract had been forced shut, the portal’s energy had not been reabsorbed. Rather, it had coalesced in a pale cloud which now writhed around the cube like an angry serpent. Tony had seen this behavior, on grainy security footage tapes, months ago. Moments before SHIELD’s Pegasus facility imploded. 

“Fuck,” Tony said aloud. “Cap, you need to get everyone clear of this thing. The Tesseract is going to bury itself here real quick.” 

Steve, recognizing the urgency of the situation, issued the general order without question. Everyone but the resident thunder god complied instantly. 

“Will you and my brother be clear of the pit by then?” Thor asked. If Tony squinted at the top of the pit, he could just barely make out the ant-sized silhouette of the god.

“Don’t worry about us, Thor. I’ve got him. Get to a safe distance. We’ll meet you back at the ridge.”

“Tony--”

“Just go!” The band of energy circling around the cube danced angrily, its movements growing more pronounced. Tony slung the unconscious god’s arm around his neck and held Loki’s form to him with an iron grip. He launched skyward only seconds before the time bomb detonated, the shockwave sending ripples through the flat terrain of the test site. For two hundred yards in each direction, the ground cracked and groaned. Sinkholes opened and were filled. The packed desert earth rolled like the waves on the ocean. And at the center of it all, the pit that had been so hastily excavated caved in, sank further below the surface, and it carried the Tesseract with it. 

_Good fucking riddance_ , Tony thought as he flew away, watching the event through the instruments in the HUD. 

“Sir,” Jarvis spoke suddenly from inside the helmet. “I am receiving disquieting readings from your passenger’s vitals.”

The AI pulled up the display that had been monitoring Loki, and Tony’s blood turned to ice in his veins. There was nothing: no heartbeat, no breathing. It was all flat.  

“No no no no no,” he said. The inventor, though still a few hundred meters short of the ridge, dropped out of the sky and landed with a jarring thud on the packed New Mexico earth. Loki was _not_ going to die today, hadn’t that been said enough times? 

He lay the god gently on the ground, and had already pressed the heel of his hands to Loki’s chest when a firm grip on his shoulder stopped him. 

“There is nothing anyone on Midgard can do for him,” Thor said solemnly. “His only chance is to be returned to Asgard.”

Tony glared. “Like _hell_ I’m letting you take him back there. They _killed_ him last time.”

The look that settled on Thor’s visage was nothing less than murderous, and Tony recalled the story of how he had leveled an entire Viking village in a night. “And if they wish to do so again, they will have to go through me.” 

“Then I’m going, too,” Tony said resolutely, meeting Thor’s eyes. The thunder god bent down, gently cradling Loki’s battered body in his arms. 

“I admire your loyalty, Iron Man, but Asgard is no place for a mortal.”

Tony opened his mouth to protest (he had heard enough of that bullshit from Loki, he didn’t need it from Thor as well), but Thor silenced him with a look. “There is no time to argue. I will return with news in due time, but every second is precious if my brother is to survive.”

And there was good sense in what he said. With a final long look at the thunder god, Tony grudgingly stepped back. The dizzying light of the Bifrost crashed over the brothers in the next moment, and just like that, they were gone. _Loki_ was gone. 

“Tony, _what_ is going on?” Steve said over the comm. 

With slow reluctance, the inventor turned away from the pattern the Bifrost had left behind. “It’s a long story,” he sighed for the second time that day. “I’ll tell you all about it on the way home.” 

He fired up his repulsors, putting the torn-up missile range to his back as he headed for the quinjet. Before the whole mess was completely out of sight, though, he noticed something he’d overlooked before. At the heart of the landing sight, amidst the twisting lines and elaborate patterns, was a rune.

It was Eihwaz.  

 

* * *

 

This time, Loki wasn’t falling. There were no harsh memories, no reminders of his many mistakes or failures. Instead, he floated, supported by arms that held no godly strength, but were a comfort all the same. There was the unique smell of oil and metal and cold electricity and something indescribably familiar. There were soft, unidentifiable words in the haze of near-consciousness. And there was pain, naturally; there was  _always_ pain. This pain, however, wasn’t brutally inflicted or borne with shame. It carried no psychological consequences, it did not indict or punish. It was simply there, and was made bearable by the strange comfort that wreathed around him. 

He was not used to it, this comfort. It was too soft, too numbing. The god twisted away from it, groaned as the pain flared up, piercing through the fog. It brought clarity to his dulled mind, and so Loki counted it as good. He moved again, latched on to the fire that burned him. The haze was clearing, and his senses were growing sharper. The familiar smell dissipated into something medicinal, burning his nose and nearly forcing a sneeze. His pain grew sharper and more defined. It felt as though something rough had been dragged harshly along his skin--his arms and chest and neck all burned together. There were other sensations, as well; a soft, heavy weight that draped across the length of his body, an almost uncomfortable warmth, the taste of metal and bile in his cotton-dry mouth. 

With a final groan, Loki hauled himself into a sitting position, freezing for a moment when the movement pulled his abused skin tight. He took a sharp breath through his teeth, breathing shallowly so as not to aggravate his wounds. As he waited for the pain to subside, he surveyed his surroundings.

From the looks of it, he was back on Asgard--not shocking, really. The medicinal smell came from an open container of poultice at his bed side. The chamber was deep, but fitted with a short ceiling that made it seem smaller than it was. Dark wood paneled the bare walls, and the bed he slept on was no more than a stuffed mattress lined with furs. It certainly wasn’t his palace chamber, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. 

Loki stood slowly when the aching in his torso finally dulled, testing his legs to see if they, too, were burned and painful. They held his weight and ached only from disuse. How long had he been out of it? The only clue to the passage of time came from a window closed off by a thick curtain. He took a hesitant step, and then another, working the ache out of his muscles. When he reached the window he lifted a hand, gingerly, and pulled aside the heavy fabric. Outside lay Asgard, the sprawling gold metropolis, alight with a late afternoon glow. Only the brightest stars appeared above the low horizon, sparkling off of the sea that cascaded into nothingness. The Bifrost was barely a thread at this distance. 

He let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, let his arm drop limply to his side. The leaves on Asgard’s trees were changing, from green to dappled orange and red. Already some of them bore patches of bare limbs. Judging on this alone, it seemed to be mid-autumn in the Realm Eternal. His execution had been just days after the summer solstice. Given his nearly two-month stint on Midgard, this made sense. But it told him nothing about how long he’d been asleep.

“Ten days,” a familiar voice said behind him, reading his mind. Loki reflexively whipped around at the sound, far faster than he should have, and gasped in pain as his burns screamed in protest. A pair of gentle hands steadied him. “You really should get back to bed.” 

“I am fine,” Loki croaked through gritted teeth, voice almost nonexistent from disuse. He looked up at the one who held him. “Mother.” One hand moved from his shoulder to touch his cheek, and Frigga smiled warmly up at him.

“Liar,” she said affectionately, and guided him back down to sit on the bed. “After what happened, I’m amazed you can stand at all.”

Yes, and what exactly _had_ happened, Loki wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember anything after forcing the Tesseract shut, and he had so many questions: about the fate of the Skrulls, about the fate of the cube, about the fate of one mortal in particular. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he got a word out Frigga was holding a cup of something cool and refreshing to his lips. 

“Drink,” she ordered. “The burns have dehydrated you.” The trickster obliged, lifting a hand to steady the vessel and draining it in one swig. The liquid was tangy, sweet. Refreshing. 

“Thank you,” he said, handing the cup back to his mother. She took it and then sat down beside him, beginning to unwrap the bandages on his torso. Loki winced as they tugged at the tender skin. Frigga tsked.

“Stop fidgeting, or this will hurt a lot more,” she chided, and Loki stilled himself immediately. 

Underneath the bandages, Loki’s skin was a patchwork of burns and scrapes. The seiðr burn was most obvious, branching out from his extremities like the roots of a tree. Its brilliant red tendrils wrapped around his arms, his shoulders; thick, angry vines swirled across his chest and upper back, vanishing just before his neck. Just looking at the burns made him wince. These burns put the aftermath of his encounter with Thor’s lightning to shame.

“This, love, is what happens when you take on a cosmic entity as old as the universe itself,” Frigga informed him, frowning at the patterns on his flesh. 

“I survived, did I not?” 

She reached for a roll of fresh bandages as she spoke. “Just barely. It was a mighty feat, what you did, but I cannot in good sense recommend you do anything so reckless in the future.”

“I shall do my best,” he assured her as she wrapped the gauze around his seared arm. “How did I do?”

“What do you mean, love?” she said softly. The gleam in her sharp eyes told him she knew exactly what he meant, but she wanted to hear him say it. The trickster god sighed. 

“Did I do as you asked?”

“Well of course. You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t.” Frigga paused in her work to look him hard in eye. “You had so many opportunities to ignore my advice, but in the end you nearly gave your life to follow it. And you saved an entire realm in the process.” She returned to her tending of his wounds. “But of course, this was not simply a one-off thing. If you leave Asgard and decide to go it your own again, I am sure that trouble will find you.”

“Leave Asgard?” Loki didn’t bother hiding the surprise. In his past experiences, his restitution for whatever sin he had committed was almost always met with probation, a command to stay in the palace until events drove him away again. “Do I have a choice this time?” 

“You are welcome to stay here, Loki,” Frigga said, tying off the last of his bandages, “but we would understand if you chose to leave. The All Father understands his mistakes.”

Loki barked a humorless laugh. “So why isn’t he here himself?” His mother’s doleful expression and damning silence answered the question well enough for her. “Of course,” he all but snarled.

Frigga made no move to defend her husband; perhaps she realized that, after all these years, the apologies fell on deaf ears. It was too little, too late. 

“You are no prisoner of ours, Loki, but there is a place here if you wish to stay and heal. Asgard would welcome you back.”

Loki’s face twisted bitterly as he stared straight ahead, eyes fixated on the horizon. Lies, all of it lies. There was no place for a jotunn in Asgard. There never had been.

Frigga understood this, it seemed. “And if our paths should split here, Heimdall waits by the Bifrost should you wish to leave. But Loki,” his mother stepped in front of him, and the light of Asgard’s dying sunlight framed her slight silhouette. “I would not have you leave without letting you know how very _proud_ of you I am. How proud I have _always_ been.”

_Proud of you._ Tears came so suddenly to Loki’s eyes that they surprised even him. The god inhaled sharply, blinking away the incriminating drops before they could fall. But it didn’t change the swelling at his breast, the healing warmth that flowed over his damaged skin. He leaned into her touch, basked in the feeling of her warm hand on his cheek. Who knew when he would feel her again. They stood there in a shared quiet until the sun slipped below the sea, wrapping all of the Golden Realm in darkness. Frigga departed silently soon after, leaving her youngest in the glow of the quarter moon. 

In the past, the cycle between Loki and Odin had played out as a glorified game of “Catch Me If You Can”. And always, _always_ , without fail, the All Father’s response was to tighten the leash on his son. He always forced them back into the cycle, out of the binary and into infinite shades of grey. Like two stars that spun around each other, locked in a cosmic dance that gravity prevented them from breaking. 

Here, then, was a chance to break that dance. To erase the grey, leaving only black and white. For the first time in a great long while, no one held Loki’s leash. No one told him when to jump. 

Finally, after one thousand years of playing games with Odin, he was _free_. 

 


	17. Life

_Three months later…._

 

The rain was coming down in sheets when Tony pulled into the parking lot of the Canlis restaurant in Seattle. The weatherman had predicted a clear sky this evening, but it was the Pacific Northwest and Tony was fast learning to take all weather predictions with a grain of salt. Chances were, if they weren’t predicting rain, the prediction was false. He stepped out of the Aston Martin and was almost instantly drenched. Muttering a curse under his breath, he threw his sport coat over his head and hurried inside the restaurant. There he found Pepper, sitting alone among a sea of empty tables, flipping through her phone and sipping at a glass of sauvignon blanc. The inventor shook the rain water from his hair, passed his jacket to waiting maitre d’, and took his seat across from her. 

“Sorry I’m late,” he said, somewhat sheepishly. “Traffic. You’d think, for living in the rain year-round, these people would know how to drive in it.”

Pepper didn’t look up from her menu. “I was half expecting you not to show up at all, given your recent track record.”

_Ouch_. He deserved that. “I wouldn’t put much stock in me either,” he answered truthfully, pulling his chair closer. His shoes squelched wetly on the carpet. “But thank _you_ for being on time.”

The hint of a smile ghosted Pepper’s lips, and she leaned back in her chair as wait staff melted out from the woodwork, bearing plates sparsely piled with the most expensive food in the state. “Well, I hope you don’t mind, but I took the liberty of ordering anyway.” 

“Not at all,” Tony said, eying the food with an almost animal hunger. He’d had too much ramen in the past weeks; it could be a raw steak on his plate and he’d eat it readily. When the waiters had left their food and disappeared once more, Pepper moved closer to the table, cutting into her sea bass. 

“So, Mr Stark,” she started, finally looking him in the eye. “What was so important that you just _had_ to see me in person? I can’t imagine you’re here to hear the same Microsoft pitch as I am.” 

Tony waggled his eyebrows, setting down the fork he had only just picked up. “Magic.”

The woman dropped her chin, her amused expression revealing she wasn’t too impressed. “Really? You couldn’t have set up a webcam?”

“What I wanted to show you wouldn’t have translated well over a camera.” Tony insisted. He leaned over the table and blew out the taper sitting between them. “Now, please, try not to be _too_ impressed...I am, after all, still human.” 

Pepper raised her eyebrows. “I’ll try,” she said dryly, taking another bite of fish. 

Tony smirked, and turned from her to focus all his attention on the smoking wick of the candle. He rubbed his hands together, exhaled slowly, snapped his fingers…and nothing happened. 

“Wow,” Pepper said, shaking her head in disbelief. “That...that was _really_ something, Tony.” He made a face. 

“No, hold on, I’ve got this…” he snapped his fingers again. The wick glowed red for an instant, then went out with a puff of smoke. A third time he snapped, and at last the flame caught. The relit candle flickered between them, its light bouncing off Tony’s bright expression. “Huh?”

Pepper snorted down at her plate. “They said at Trinity you blew up a _bank vault_. Is lighting a candle supposed to impress me?”

Tony set his elbow on the table, pointing an accusing finger at her. “Well, for _one_ , the safe thing was out of desperation, and _two_ , it charred my arms like Fourth of July steaks. Forgive me if I’m not able to harness the power of the sun quite yet. Let’s see _you_ do better.”

“Oh no,” she set her fork down and held up her hands in defeat. “I’m not the one who claimed to be a wizarding prodigy.” 

“I’m sure this would be easier if I had a spell book, but Hogwarts doesn’t give out library cards,” he retorted. “I’m just going off of what he taught me.”

“Yes, well, I’d love to have a word with him, teaching you fire spells. You create enough of that without magic.”

“You could call it my speciality,” the inventor replied, stuffing a bite of sea bass in his mouth. The truth was, he wanted to have a word with Loki as well. A visit, a phone call, a spiteful message relayed through Thor, a papyrus scroll tied to the leg of a celestial pigeon, _anything_. But there had been nothing since Trinity, no word from him. Just speculation. It was maddening.

A week after the battle with the Skrulls, Thor had returned from Asgard with his typical dramatic flair, lightning vortex from the sky and all. The only news he could relay was that Loki was still alive.

“I am sorry I do not know more, Tony,” he said, resting a hand on the inventor’s shoulder. “The All Father was very adamant that he be left...alone.” Tony had played it off, smiled despite himself, assured his teammate that he was just worried. It was enough to know that Loki was still breathing. 

But inside, he felt like he was being eaten alive. There was something disconcerting about all the unoccupied space in his head, having only himself for company. Something _off_. He found that he couldn’t handle the emptiness in his lab, either. On the first day he’d blasted Black Sabbath, but quickly changed it to Pink Floyd. On the second day he’d put the Star Wars trilogies loudly on repeat in the background. On the third day, he’d tried to hold a conversation with Jarvis, which required him to drop everything and code for small talk capability in the AI. On the fourth day he’d thrown his wrench across the lab, run a hand through his greasy hair, and decided that he hated being alone. 

The Avengers were shocked when he showed his face again. Shocked, but pleased. Apparently he’d interrupted an impromptu Mario Kart tournament that pitted Thor and Clint against Steve and Nat. Bruce sat out, citing how terrible the game would be for his blood pressure. He was in charge of keeping score on a handheld wipeboard; so far, it was five to nothing in favor of Natasha and Steve.

“Care to join?” Nat said, leaning over the back of the couch, controller dangling from her fingertips. “Three on two wouldn’t be unfair, seeing as how terribly Thor and Clint are doing.”

Clint threw a mock-glare her way. “We’d be doing fine if Thor would stop throwing himself into the abyss.”

“The real Rainbow Bridge is nowhere near this convoluted,” the thunder god muttered in frustration. 

“Yeah, but this is the Rainbow _Road_ , buddy.” Tony sighed theatrically and sank into an armchair beside the team, accepting the controller that Natasha threw in his lap. “You guys are going to have to stop depending on me to swoop in and save the day all the time. You know what it does to my ego.” 

“Save it for when you actually win,” Steve shot back, and it was on.

In the end, his team didn’t win the tournament, but they did close quite a lot of ground. Tony counted that as a win. 

Across the table, Pepper cleared her throat. Tony blinked, roused from his recollection. “I know you didn’t fly all the way out here just to show me that you can do parlor tricks.”

“You don’t know that. It is _completely_ in character for me to do something like that.” 

“I will not argue that point,” she conceded. “But I’ve known you too long. You have something to say.”

“Yeah, okay,” Tony cleared his throat, wiped his mouth with the cloth napkin beside his plate. “What I really wanted to do was apologize.”

Pepper’s eyebrows jumped up to her hairline. “Well, this is a first. A genuine, spoken apology. And in a fancy restaurant no less. Loki _must_ have taught you something.”

“I’m a bit insulted that my firebending isn’t nearly as miraculous as my apologizing,” Tony said, feigning offense. The redhead smiled, reaching for her wineglass and taking a sip. 

“Speaking of which…”

“Right, right. I’m getting there.” The inventor hesitated, trying to find the words. He was genuinely terrible at apologies; he wanted to make this one count. “I know since New York I’ve been….distant--”

“That’s one way of putting it,” Pepper said into her sauvignon blanc. 

Tony glared. “Would you like me to apologize or not?”

“Sorry, sorry. Keep going.”

“Anyway,” he continued. “I saw things, really fucked up things. New York. Afghanistan, which I recently learned I’m still not over. A lot of it felt like my fault. I was already so afraid of losing what was important to me, and to only see evidence that I was the Big Wrong in all of it, I thought that pushing everyone away was the best way to protect them. I had to solve the problems on my own so no one would get hurt. I realized I was hurting the people closest to me, I’m not going to lie, but I figured you were better off with me solving the problem than in your life. 

“But I was wrong, and hoping that maybe we could start over.”

“Again?” Pepper smiled ruefully across the table. “You know that whatever was between us….”

“....is gone, thanks to me. Yeah, I figured. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a working relationship with the CEO of my company where we still talk now and then. And maybe get dinner.”

“And you show me magic tricks?” 

“I’ll try to come up with something that’ll impress you.”

Pepper leaned back in her chair, swirling the pale wine in her glass thoughtfully. “I’d like that,” she said at last. “Just as long as you know that this--” she motioned between them, “--is over. For good, this time.”

Tony held up his hands. “Fair enough.” The ultimatum, though it twisted something in his gut, was not the devastating blow he expected. In fact, it was almost a relief. Truthfully, he’d never held out hope for them; Pepper had been too good for him to begin with, tainted by the world only through her boss’s constant fuck-uppery. But there was something else that kept this from being the heart-rending reevaluation of their relationship that he’d anticipated, and that was….he wasn’t sure he wanted the relationship to continue, either. Tony wouldn’t go so far as to say there was someone else--the only other _possible_ someone else was MIA, and had been for over three months. But he had changed, had grown, and come to the realization that, though he adored Pepper, he wanted the same thing as her: a lack of romance between them. 

The pair chatted idly for the rest of the evening, enjoying the quiet of the restaurant and the slight pounding of rain on the roof, rebuilding the bridges that Tony had single-handedly smashed to bits. By the time they finally called it a night, it was nearly ten o’clock. 

Pepper had the good sense to bring an umbrella with her, and walked a still-drying Tony to his car. 

“Don’t be a stranger, Tony,” she said as he unlocked the Aston Martin. “I mean that. If I hear you spend more than twelve uninterrupted hours in that damn lab, I will have you institutionalized.” 

“I believe you,” Tony answered. “I also believe that Steve and the rest would help you put me there.”

Pepper smiled. “Then I guess I’ll see you back in New York.”

“Right, yeah. See you again,” he climbed into the front seat of the sports car, watching her walk back to her sedan, slip inside, close the door, and drive off. The tail lights of her company car vanished quickly into the soggy Northwestern night, and Tony was alone. He exhaled through his nose, leaning back into the seat. He really, really hated being alone. 

From his pocket, the inventor withdrew an ancient, familiar stone. In the lightless Seattle night, its glow was more pronounced, turning his hands a Hulk-like shade of green. Eihwaz was a stupidly sentimental thing to carry around, Tony acknowledge this, but he kept it with him anyway. It was the same stupid sentimentality that prevented him from changing the lab’s override codes. Some part of him hoped that, when (if) Loki ever came back, he’d easily be able to locate the inventor. 

“Have you tried this?” 

Tony jumped at the sound of a voice right beside him, slamming his knee into the steering column with an impressive _thunk_. The Eihwaz stone flew from his grip, clattering against the window and rolling out of sight underneath the driver’s side seat. He turned to see Loki, sitting in the passenger seat in Midgardian clothes, holding a large Starbucks drink in his hand. The god was eyeing him with bright eyes over the lid of the cup. 

“The mortal behind the counter called it a ‘Pumpkin Spice Latte’. I do believe it is the tastiest coffee I’ve ever had.”

Seeing the god sitting beside him, after months of absence, left the inventor at a loss for words. They stared at each other over the center console, Loki sipping at his drink and Tony slack-jawed in disbelief. When he did find his voice, Tony’s words were angry. “Where the hell have you been?”

The god smiled over the rim of his coffee. “Pike Place Market. Apparently, the Starbucks there was the first coffee shop of its kind. A fascinating look into Midgardian culture.”

“You vanish for three months and that’s all you’re going to give me?”

“Why, Stark, am I to assume that you missed me?” the god crooned.

_Yes_. Aloud, Tony harrumphed. “It would have been nice to know that Odin didn’t decapitate you again.” 

“Oh, but Thor told you that much already, didn’t he?” Loki said knowingly. 

Tony scoffed and shook his head. “The All Father has lied to him before. He could easily have done it again.” He eyed the god, who continued to delicately sip at his drink, offering nothing to the heavily one-sided conversation. “I see you lost the BDSM look. It suits you better.”

Loki looked down at the fitted green shirt and black slacks he wore. “They are surprisingly comfortable. Useless, but comfortable.”

“Trying to fit in?”

“Thanos has suffered two severe blows at the hand of this realm’s inhabitants in the last year. I would not like to be easily identifiable on the off-chance he comes back for revenge.”

Tony sat up a bit straighter. “Do you think he’ll come back?”

The god shook his head. “Oh no, not for a while. By removing the Skrulls from the equation, you’ve made it impossible for him to come at Midgard from the inside. He’ll have to be direct in his methods, which means going up against Asgard, and I don’t think he’s quite ready for that confrontation.” Loki patted the inventor’s hand, which was gripping the vehicle’s stick shift. “Midgard is safe, for a little while longer. Thanks to me.”

“I recall that I played a pretty big part in all that….”

“Details, details.” Loki waved his hand through the air, as if brushing away Tony’s protests. “What matters is, Midgard is safe. Probably the safest place in the galaxy for me right now.”

Tony stared hard at the god, brows pulling together in a frustrated expression. “If it’s so safe, why did it take you so long to come back?” 

“Truthfully?”

“No, please, lie to my face. I like that much better.”

Loki’s mouth twisted sardonically. “It was pride. I am over a thousand years old; I did not want to be driven into hiding by a monster barely a fraction of my age. I am a trickster, a shapeshifter, and so I left Asgard and went about my life.”

“Clearly something scared you back into hiding, then.” Tony didn’t bother to hide the saltiness in his voice. “Why else would you come back here?”

The god made an irritated noise. “Do not presume that I am so incompetent where stealth is concerned. I am the only one to ever sneak past Heimdall’s watch; to hide from a Titan is a challenge, but one I am up to.”

“So what, then? Why come back at all?” 

Loki stared down at his drink, one long finger tracing patterns on the plastic lid. “Since the resolution of our ordeal, I have found there is a disconcerting amount of empty space in my own mind. I have never felt loneliness before, but I believe that’s what it was.

“I found company in my old circles, but it did little to fill that space. There was nothing for me among the other worlds. So I returned.”

Tony knew this emptiness intimately. Even surrounded by his friends, even after reconciling with Pepper and Rhodey (they had returned to Vegas not too long before his meeting with Pepper), there was still a hollow in his soul. And he had an inkling that only one thing would sate it. 

“And what made you think you’d fill that space on Earth?” Tony asked, fishing for an answer. Loki, as usual, saw right through him and dodged the question.

“Coffee,” he said simply, raising the red cup in his hand. “It’s quite addicting when prepared properly.”

“Oh?” Tony leaned his elbow on the steering wheel. “Do other planets _not_ have coffee?”

“They have something similar,” Loki continued. He reclined in the seat, keeping his eyes on Tony. “But it’s bitter. Wrong. No amount of sugar disguises that it is not Earthly coffee, and it does nothing to ease my cravings. I had to return for the real thing.” He took a long, slow pull from the cup. “I believe the taste faded in my memory, though. This drink is much more satisfying than I remembered.” 

Tony smirked. “You’ll have to help me out here. I thought you hated coffee.”

“I did at first. It has since grown on me, to the point where I began noticing the imperfections in substitutes.”

“Tell me more about how _inadequate_ these substitutes were.”

So Loki continued to talk, but the words lost meaning for Tony. There was once a time where the talk of other worlds would have excited him, compelled him to hound the god for every detail. But after New York, after Trinity, after sharing the thoughts of a being who had seen the cosmos and been burned by them, Tony was simply glad to see the other alive. 

That’s not to say it wasn’t hard to reconcile the god, whose presence he’d grown to tolerate at the very least (sincerely enjoy at the most), with the sharp angled face that sat across from him. To Tony, there would always be one aspect or another to get over, whether it be the snarling mouth, the mad eyes, the wicked hand against his throat that had tossed him like a ragdoll out the fifty-sixth story window of Stark Tower. But the mouth was softer now, the eyes lively and mischievous, and they hinted at the being that Tony had come to know. Had desperately _missed_ when it was gone. And here, in this car, while the rain came down in sheets outside, Tony didn’t wish to be anywhere else. 

“Stark?” Loki had paused, eyeing the inventor with a curious look. “Are you alright?”

“Never better,” the inventor answered, realizing he’d been staring at Loki as he spoke. 

Tony had never quite mastered impulse control. It had led to numerous problems in his life, ranging from improper lab safety to speaking before he had fully thought out what he was going to say. Rhodey and Pepper liked to joke that he didn’t need to be drunk to make drunk decisions. It was this exact lack of natural inhibition that had him suddenly leaning over the center console, and cutting off Loki’s next words with a kiss. 

Loki froze instantly, turning to stone in the Aston Martin’s passenger seat, and it took only seconds for the reality of what Tony had just done to sink in. The inventor went to pull away, feeling an intense heat rush to his cheeks, but was stopped when Loki leaned into the kiss at the last minute. The god reached up to wrap his hand around the inventor’s neck, pulling him closer. The kiss itself was slow and sweet, and could have gone on forever without growing old.

When they finally pulled away, faces flushed and breathing hard, Loki was smiling. “You could have just said you missed me.”

Tony cocked his head, a grin forming to match Loki’s. “I could have. But I thought this would be more fun.”

“That makes two of us,” the god whispered back, and leaned in for another kiss. 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand...fin. Thank you all for reading this! I honestly can't believe it's finished. For four months I ate, slept, and breathed this work and I could not be more proud of the outcome. This actually marks the first story I've written since 2006 that has exceeded 5k words, and boy did I exceed that mark by a long shot. I entered the Frostiron Bang to urge to do something of this caliber and I did it. It has truly been an amazing experience. 
> 
> Once again, thank you to the perfect rosaeldi for her art. Working with her has been amazing, and that she took on this story knowing it wasn't even half-finished is a testament to her awesomeness.


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